Tag Archives: the south

November 4, 2012 · 1:26 am

Chapter 66: Mad About the Boy | My Southern Gothic Life

I’m being a little lazy on this blog, but much more prolific than usual on my other blog…

There is a new post upon MySoutherGothicLife.com.  Here is an excerpt and a link to the full post:

Everyone one should have one John Ashley in their life.  But only one…

One is a voyage of youthful self-discovery, more than one is a sign of self-destruction and co-dependency setting you up for an intervention…..

I truly hope everyone has one Bad Boy in their past…Someone who was a youthful fascination they had the good sense to not marry….

If you are young, my best advice is to read this and learn.  If you are with a John Ashley, enjoy the moment, but keep your sense of perspective.  Boys like this aren’t for the long haul of life…

Boys like John Ashley are of a time and a place in your life.  Remember that.  It will save you a lot of emotional pain and money for divorce attorneys.

That said, let’s talk about John Ashley.

via Chapter 66: Mad About the Boy | My Southern Gothic Life.

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October 27, 2012 · 4:55 pm

Chapter 65: The Right Stuff | My Southern Gothic Life

There is a new post up on my other blog, MySouthernGothicLife.com….

Here is an excerpt and a link to the full post:

I firmly believe in the Right Stuff.

By that, I mean the real thing- the right things-no imitations, no cutting corners and playing by the entertainment rules.   And, goddammit, there are rules!

I can’t help it.  I’m from Virginia and I was raised that way.  And I’m Gay so that means I have to take it even further…

I want every party to be like the one Audrey Hepburn attended at the Larrabee’s in “Sabrina”.  I will always want to make my entrance with an orchestra playing “Isn’t It Romantic” in the background.  I know that’s not a realistic expectation, but, who cares?

via Chapter 65: The Right Stuff | My Southern Gothic Life.

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July 27, 2012 · 6:30 pm

White Baptist Church in Mississippi Bans Black Wedding

Unbelievable….

I guess things haven’t changed much in Mississippi over the last 50 years….

And of course it’s the Baptists leading the march backwards in time….

I don’t mean the Independent Baptist Churches, who had to leave the Southern Baptist Convention when the Southern Baptist Convention really went crazy and started trying to lead a return to the 19th Century-especially for Women, Gays and Minorities.  The Southern Baptist seem to think of the days of white male dominance as “the good old days”.

I mean these Southern Baptist Churches like the one I grew up in….

The ones whose motto isn’t “What would Jesus do?” but rather “What will the neighbors think?”

Add “First” to any Baptist Church name in the South and you can usually up the judgmental and pretentiousness factors by 10 as they like to think they are among the most “Socially Prominent” Churches in any little town….

It’s hard to believe even they are still this far out of step with time, but the people in these kinds of Churches just don’t seem to be very open to any kind of change at all….

To them, it will always be 1956….or 1856.

From TheRawStory.com:

A black couple in Crystal Springs, Mississippi says that a predominantly white Baptist church refused to let them get married because of their race.

Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson told WLBT that the day before they were to be married, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs informed them the ceremony would have to be moved due to the reaction of some white church members — even though the couple had attended the church regularly.

“The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church, and that if [the pastor] went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church,” Charles Wilson explained.

“He had people in the sanctuary that were pitching a fit about us being a black couple,” Te’Andrea Wilson added. “I didn’t like it at all, because I wasn’t brought up to be racist. I was brought up to love and care for everybody.”

Dr. Stan Weatherford, the church’s pastor, was forced to perform the marriage at another church after he was taken by surprise by his congregation’s outrage.

via White Baptist church in Mississippi bans black wedding | The Raw Story.

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July 5, 2012 · 7:19 pm

Young Boy With Two Gay Dads Will Be Allowed In Swimming Pool

It’s nice to see some positive news from Virginia…

And for people to see just how the Private Sector tries to use anti-Gay Republican legislation to discriminate, not just against Gay people, but their children…

The good news is that, thanks to a Change.org petition with over 80,000 signatures-multiplying by the moment- they can also be persuaded to change.  But it seems they only change once there is enough Public Pressure to do so…

Wouldn’t it be nice if they did the right thing to begin with?

From the NewCivilRightsMovement.org:

 

A young boy with two gay dads will now be allowed to swim in a Virginia health club pool after a Change.org petition went viral, garnering as of this writing almost 80,000 signatures in a few days — and escalating by the thousands every few minutes. As The New Civil Rights Movement reported Tuesday, a same-sex couple who have a two-year old son had been denied access to the Roanoke Athletic Club‘s swimming pool, which is owned by the regional Virginia medical provider, Carilion Clinic, which revoked the membership of the family after they realized the family was headed by two gay dads.

The petition, by LGBT activist Mark Lynn Ferguson, noted that two men, Will Trinkle and his “partner Juan Granados wanted to take their 2-yeard-old son [sic] Oliver Trinkle-Granados to the gym’s outdoor pool during the summer months.”

Only children on family memberships are allowed to use the pool, so Trinkle signed up for a family plan. His application was accepted and processed, clearly listing him, his same sex partner, and their child as members.

Nine days later, a representative from the gym contacted Trinkle and told him that his application was processed by mistake. According to Trinkle, the representative said that the company was “‘tightening policies’ so no families like us would ever ‘get as far’ as we had.” The representative went on to claim that Roanoke Athletic Club is following Virginia state law, which does not recognize same sex marriage.

Now, just moments ago, Change.org wrote via Twitter that “The Carilion Clinic announced they will change their family policy so children with gay parents can swim in the pool!”

More:   Success! Young Boy With Two Gay Dads Will Be Allowed In Swimming Pool! | The New Civil Rights Movement.

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July 4, 2012 · 10:46 am

Conservative Southern Values and the New Class Warfare

I usually take  Alternet with a grain of salt, but this article really stood out for me….

Alternet is has an admittedly Progressive editorial view.  Their articles can lack focus, run on too long and be very wordy.  They truly need some editorial help to tighten things ups, but they make some very valid points.  If you can find them….

But this one really stood out for its quality and point of view.  It is really worth clicking the link and reading it in its entirety….

And, given the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” that they have employed since Nixon, it has a real resonance.  As the GOP becomes a regional, Southern party, this is something to really keep in mind….

It’s looking more and more like the South may be winning the Second Civil War and we have to think of how to stop this…

This is something I’ve been saying in cocktail conversations for years…

Arguably, the true Conservative position would be to return to the New England view of wealth and the world….

That’s the Traditional way….

For most of our history, American economics, culture and politics have been dominated by a New England-based Yankee aristocracy that was rooted in Puritan communitarian values, educated at the Ivies and marinated in an ethic of noblesse oblige (the conviction that those who possess wealth and power are morally bound to use it for the betterment of society). While they’ve done their share of damage to the notion of democracy in the name of profit (as all financial elites inevitably do), this group has, for the most part, tempered its predatory instincts with a code that valued mass education and human rights; held up public service as both a duty and an honor; and imbued them with the belief that once you made your nut, you had a moral duty to do something positive with it for the betterment of mankind. Your own legacy depended on this.

Among the presidents, this strain gave us both Roosevelts, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, and Poppy Bush — nerdy, wonky intellectuals who, for all their faults, at least took the business of good government seriously. Among financial elites, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet still both partake strongly of this traditional view of wealth as power to be used for good. Even if we don’t like their specific choices, the core impulse to improve the world is a good one — and one that’s been conspicuously absent in other aristocratic cultures.

Which brings us to that other great historical American nobility — the plantation aristocracy of the lowland South, which has been notable throughout its 400-year history for its utter lack of civic interest, its hostility to the very ideas of democracy and human rights, its love of hierarchy, its fear of technology and progress, its reliance on brutality and violence to maintain “order,” and its outright celebration of inequality as an order divinely ordained by God.

via Conservative Southern Values Revived: How a Brutal Strain of American Aristocrats Have Come to Rule America | | AlterNet.

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April 16, 2012 · 11:05 pm

Chapter 63: A Sense of Place from “My Southern Gothic Life”

There is a new post up on my other blog:

 

I just got home from home…

First of all, you have to understand that home is a complex term for me.  It’s more a feeling than a place….

I just spent the weekend in Lexington, Virginia where I went to school at Washington and Lee University.

I just realized it was also my first home…

More:   Chapter 63: A Sense of Place | My Southern Gothic Life.

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April 7, 2012 · 1:15 am

Easter Parade

Easter always brings out the bitch in me….

It’s a strange holiday for me…

Part of me resents that the whole world- at least in the USA and at my gym- stops for a purely Christian holiday when we should be living in a multi-cultural world. I mean, it’s not a federal holiday, but you still can’t escape the secular recognition of a Christian holiday. Or go to the gym or get a decent chinese meal.

Even though Passover starts the same day as Good Friday this year, it’s all about Easter.

To me, Easter was always about shopping and new outfits. As far as I knew, Jesus died so you could shop at Belk-Leggetts.

Part of my problem may be the fact that I was raised a Social Christian. When I watch “GCB”, aka “Good Christian Bitches”, on television, it reminds me of the church where I grew up. Admittedly, our Church was not in Dallas and not as wealthy, but there seem to be two kinds of Southern Baptist Churches: Crazy Right Wing Christian Almost Snake Handlers and Social.

Ours was Social Christian. At our Church, most of the Easter Sunday Service was spent looking over your shoulder to see who was wearing what and hearing things like “She wore that hat last year.” or “Poor thing, I bet she made that…”

We were not well trained in liturgy or theology, but then, neither were our ministers….

That’s why I spent most of my time in the Church balcony reading the collective works of Jacqueline Susann.

I realized the depth of my ignorance this year when we went to Maundy Thursday services.

We went to services at a “modern” church where it was a totally musical service. Admittedly, I was concerned before we went.

I live in fear of “Praise Bands”. I think one day God or the Goddess will strike them all down for creating boring, pedestrian, self-indulgent music.

I was pleasantly surprised. The music at this Church used old English hymns with new lyrics. It was actually very nice. I love anything Olde English and it also had a kind of American mountain feel that made me appreciate it in a sociological/anthropological way.

I was also very much aware of how much my Baptist Christian upbringing was lacking. I didn’t have any idea what Maundy Thursday meant and the music was about the Stations of the Cross. For all I knew, the Stations of the Cross meant Jesus took the train to Calvary….

This type of service was a revelation for me. Usually, if I go to a Church it’s to hear a classical music program and wear nice clothes….

If I’m going to subject myself to Christianity, I generally want it to be High Church…

But that may be baggage I carry…

I’m convinced Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell ruined Christianity for several generations. Thanks to them, I can’t escape the feeling that when I go to Church, I’m going undercover in the enemy camp.

But when I do go to a new church, I am amazed at my ignorance…

I figure the Baptist didn’t want us to know too much or think about it all too much. That’s why they are generally Republicans.

That makes me think I need to look into this a little more…

I know more about Passover than I know about Easter…

And I don’t think that’s a bad thing….

I think we all need to stop, think and study what others are celebrating and thinking about on these holidays….

And I think we also need to recognize the pagan holidays they usurped….

I want us to be able to comfortably settle on the acceptance that all these holidays have values and that we chose what to take from each of them…

I can’t accept closing doors and minds to celebrate only one way of life….

I want to try to appreciate all at the views, beliefs and seasons we are celebrating….

And still go shopping….

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March 30, 2012 · 4:22 pm

Most and Least Religious States in America

Some interesting, but not really surprising information….

What’s surprising is how these deeply religious people in the South seem to support the heartless GOP agenda….

Is that really what Jesus would do?

From the Huffington Post…….

Religiosity varies widely across U.S. states and regions, with Mississippi in the deep South and Vermont in New England providing the most extreme example of the disparity. Fifty-nine percent of Mississippians are very religious and 11% nonreligious, while 23 percent of Vermonters are very religious and 58 percent are nonreligious. Although New Hampshire ties Vermont with 23 percent of its residents classified as very religious, slightly fewer (52 percent) residents in the Granite State are classified as nonreligious.

More generally, eight of the 10 most religious states in 2011 are in the South (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia), with one straddling the line between the South and the Midwest (Oklahoma), and one in the West (Utah). None of the most religious states are in the Middle Atlantic, New England, or West Coast regions.

By contrast, six of the least religious states in 2011 are in New England (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) and four are in the West (Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington), with the District of Columbia and New York rounding out the list.

via Most and Least Religious States in America.

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February 6, 2012 · 10:57 pm

The Novel Has Begun….

New post up on my other blog…

I’ve been playing with writing a novel and here is a very rough draft of part of the first chapter….

Click the link if you want to read more:

I was living in a dying town.  It was official.  I had seen the story listing the “official” government lists of dying cities and my town was on the list.  It was in the Washington Post, so it must be true.

The funny thing was, I had come back here to get away from the dying.

But both death and time do have a way of catching up with you.

I wondered how the town would react if I reprinted the story in our local newspaper.  They would probably just ignore it.  Or some of our stalwart citizens would angrily condemn it in angry letters to the editor.  Either way, it was probably best to just ignore it.  That’s what people generally did with bad news from outside here in Southside  Virginia.

It had always been an insular, closed off little town, but it was even more so now.  The cotton mills were gone and tobacco was now widely thought to be worse than opium.  But, people couldn’t let go of the past.  People here were still fighting the Civil War and referring to it as the “War of Northern Aggression” on the local blogs and on Facebook pages.

It was not a good place to be young, smart or interested in new thoughts and things outside of the town or a good place to live if you asked too many questions or challenged the status quo.  Never had  been.

Those were the thoughts I was having as I sat on the old glider of my Grandmother’s house in the mill village and nursed a Virginia Gentleman and water.  Things always stayed the same here.  Or people tried like hell to make them do so.

That’s why I was so surprised to see a new Volvo come down the hill and pull in behind my Lexus in the gravel drive way beside the house.  I didn’t often have visitors.  However, I was only slightly surprised to see Peyton Chandler McManus get out of the Volvo and walk up to the porch.  She had been gone for years, but I had heard she was back in town.

More:  The Novel Has Begun…. | My Southern Gothic Life.

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February 4, 2012 · 5:16 pm

STOCK Act Opponent NC Senator Richard Burr Stands To Gain From Natural Gas Investments

It’s a real shame we couldn’t get rid of Burr when he was up for re-election a couple of years ago, but I’m afraid Elaine Marshall just wasn’t the right candidate with the right resources to run against him.

And the Democratic Senatorial Committee and Democratic National Committee weren’t much help either…

He is such a corporatist non-entity, he should have been easy pickings if we had had the right candidate with sufficient resources at the right time.

But that was also the height of the Tea Party insanity….

Burr taking positions like this and having this obvious conflicts of interest should make it much easier to retire him next time.  It truly takes guts- and stupidity- to vote AGAINST insider trading laws for Senators!

From the Huffington Post:

Sen. Richard Burr’s vocal opposition to the STOCK Act raised some eyebrows in Washington this week, and with good reason.

Burr, a North Carolina Republican who was one of just three senators to vote against the ban on congressional insider trading Thursday, owns investments in the natural gas industry that would benefit from legislation he co-sponsored offering tax credits for natural gas-fueled vehicles.

Burr has investments in the gas industry valued from $133,298 to $219,337, according to his 2010 filings. His portfolio includes $36,000 worth of stock in Chesapeake Energy Corp., the second-largest U.S. producer of natural gas. He also holds more than $25,000 in shares of Loews Corp., a holding company with subsidiaries engaged in the exploration, production, marketing and transmission of natural gas.

He was on the losing side of Thursday’s 96-3 passage of the STOCK Act, that would tighten rules for lawmakers and their aides using inside information for personal investments. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said he’ll bring the STOCK Act to the House floor next week.

Burr’s investments pose “a very clear conflict of interest,” said Craig Holman of the advocacy group Public Citizen. He said the STOCK Act “will make members of Congress much more cautious in any particular sector, including natural gas.” While the STOCK Act wouldn’t prohibit such investments, “members of Congress will have to think twice about any kind of trading activity they do,” Holman said.

via STOCK Act Opponent Richard Burr Stands To Gain From Natural Gas Investments.

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