I know you can’t generalize dears, of course, but it certainly left me with the vibe that North Carolina, not exactly pro Jew.

That was the memory spinning about in my head when I watched the news and saw the disgusting display of anti-humanitarian, homophobic, mass effort to stamp out the rights of gays and lesbians not only to marry but also just in case they might have any equal rights at all, void domestic unions from having equal legal rights too.

Yep North Carolina approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, becoming the latest state to say “HELL YES! I’m a homophobic pig and proud of it!”

Right wing homophobes think this sends a message that marriage must be between a man and a woman, but the message I think it really sends is that North Carolina is a non-progressive, racist, backward place that would probably be more then thrilled if the south would rise again. No disrespect to the good men and women who voted against this shameless piece of crap.

Certainly didn’t help much that Obama had been about as vague as a foggy day on his support of marriage equality. But when Biden piped up to voice his support. It forced Obama not to play it safe any longer. Too bad it didn’t come a few days sooner, when it might have helped North Carolina, especially after so many gay Americans put him in office.

But at least, later on Obama has at long last come out in support of gay marriage. CUDOS TO YOU SIR!! Maybe your hand was forced by your VP but you got there all the same.
You are finallly standing up for marriage equality for all! This is a great moment in the history of human rights.

As to North Carolina. They can celebrate their success. Hurray for them, they have announced to the world they have no open minds, no open hearts and do not care about equal rights in this country.

I bet those Klu Klux Klan Kowboys my sis and I met are dancing in the street today.

Just 17 years old and his life is now over.

How many more kids have to die before we put a stop to bullying?

How many more kids have to die before we stamp out homophobia?

It’s 2012 for crying out loud.

Why is marriage equality even being debated?
What lessons are these bullies being taught at home that sends them to school to taunt and terrorize innocents kids so much that those kids prefer to end their life rather then endure any more?

It’s just got to stop!

There are great groups like itgetsbetter.org and lady gaga’s born this way foundation and pflag and every gay community center in ever city they are in, but it still can’t stop this tidal wave of fear, ignorance and hatred.

I still see the beautiful face of Matthew Shepard in my head dieing on that fence. Didn’t Matthew teach us anything?

ENOUGH

Hey hey, ho, ho!

Homophobia’s got to go!

We are all created equal damn it and I’m tired of watching our kids die!

Aren’t you!

“ A Kid got killed by a cop!” He said.

That’s what everyone seemed to think. There has been a lot of anti-NYPD media lately about issues ranging from extra surveillance of mosques and racial profiling to violence against protestors.

It was only later on that night that I learned that Trayvon was not killed by a cop, or in NY but in Florida by a volunteer Watchman. Doesn’t make this tragic story any better, but does take the heat off NYPD well on this instance anyway.

About a week ago, at around 11:30 PM. my gal and I were walking thru Union Square Park again and we saw a line up of riot police. By the time we reached the 14th street border I watched a terrifying site. A first line of riot police moved forward coaxing the crowd back. A captain with a bullhorn yelling orders, the park was now to be vacated. A second line of riot police, all in full helmet the whole shebang moved forward. Then a third line. It was so orchestrated I felt chilled to the bone.

My gal asked if we could watch the site from the meridian across the street. She was concerned about us being hurt if the crowd went un-ruly.

The site was terrifying and I felt tears well up in my eyes. All those helmets and bullhorns, was this the 60’s all over again? But it did what it was supposed to do; it got the protestors out of the park without violence and to my knowledge, at least this night without arrests.

The next day I asked an OCCUPY WALL STREET young man about what we had seen.

“It happens every night. They try to psyche us out. It’s so scary. I leave before midnight when it starts now. I can’t take out, I’m having nightmares. “

Another young man explained, that the park must be emptied from midnight till 6am to prevent anyone from living there like they had downtown. That if anyone is found sleeping or lying down they are forced to get up.

“But people have always slept in the park,” I said. They lay down to sunbath all summer. Homeless crash here.”

“Yeh,” the second young man said, “The was until three weeks ago when Occupy Wall Street came here.”

I read a sign that said “Come by at midnight to watch the NYPD show. Bring your cameras.”

I felt sad inside. I’ve seen this park in the 80’s when it was so dangerous that you took your life in your hands just walking thru it. But in the last two decades it’s become the peaceful, frolicking place of the dog run and the farmer’s market and out-door art shows and yes sunbathers. Now it felt like a military dictatorship.

I know a few ex-cops, one in particular who lights my world, all the most peaceful people I know. Good, kind, loving, caring, humanitarians.

“They’re just doing their job,” my gal said. “It’s not right to pit them against people they have nothing against.”

It’s been a bad year for the NYPD. Maybe the fire department got most of the hero praise after “911” but the cops deserved it too.

I don’t know when it went so south.

I certainly don’t think NYPD should be blamed for anything to do with Trayvon Martin. Which is a story so upsetting it’s creating a civil rights revolution all across the country.
And may very well and should change the laws in Florida.

I don’t think the hundreds of young men and women in uniform following orders to peacefully however frighteningly clear Union Square park every night should be blamed for the outbursts of cop violence that has hit the news.

But I do think that sometimes it seems like in my mother Harriet’s words, “mankind has learned nothing” she said this about George Bush Senior but I think of it often. Squelching protests with mass police presence fans the flames and fans hatred. Has it ever worked otherwise?

OCCUPY WALL STREET was not a protest against cops. Cops are middle-class Americans just trying to make it and support their families like most Americans. Occupy Wall Street would certainly call them the 99%.

But the last few times I went to anything OCCUPY Wall street was doing it was as much if not more anti-cop than anti- well pick from one of the many things being protested in this movement.

Hey I’m not saying there are not bad things happening.

“Stop and Frisk” for no reason other then being black and in the wrong place is high on the list.

Racially biased shootings, top of the list.

Cops pepper spraying non-violent protestors, beating and arresting non-violent protestors just trying to speak out for themselves in a free country, all this is wrong and terrifying and should and must be punished.

There are bad cops, just like there are bad soldiers, as we’ve clearly learned most recently in Afghanistan. But we don’t call all soldiers murderers because one of them went postal. Even if we are anti-war we still support our troops. We still call them heroes when they come home. Well we should anyway. Troops coming home to un-employment, not such a nice welcome. That’s another issue for OCCUPY WALL STREET to bring up.

Cops, also go to work every day not knowing if they will come home. Their families’ worry too will this good-bye be the last. They walk over to a car not knowing if a face or an oozie will greet them.

I don’t know when NYPD went from heroes to zeroes but it’s sad.

There are bad cops. There are bad orders good cops have to follow. There are bad circumstances too. But mostly, I think there are good cops just trying to do the best they can do and not get killed.

I still see think they are heroes.

Over the years I have rarely seen Oprah’s show, since I’m always working when she’s on, but adored her on The Color Purple and generally like that she seems to be an honorable, woman who fights for the under-dog. Hey maybe it’s just good PR but that’s how it comes across.

I know she is a life-changer for the people she has put on her show and certainly commands a waft of love and respect that few if anyone can brag about. Okay maybe Rosie O’Donnell isn’t loving her so much right now. But you know most seem to.

I had heard that OWN wasn’t doing that well which proves that even a god like OPRAH can’t just launch a TV network and have it fly but landing interviews like Whitney Houston’s family and Lady Gaga surely will help.

Anyway, this is not a rant about Oprah; it’s a rant about Gaga.

I don’t know when it happened that suddenly I wasn’t a 20-something or a 30-something anymore but became GASP, a 40-something, but it’s a strange feeling for me to have immense respect for someone I am old enough to have given birth to.

But there you have it watching Gaga making tea for her lovely mom and Oprah in the upper-west-side Manhattan apartment she grew up in and chatting with no snobbery, no pretension about her career and more passionately about her fight to stop bullying just left me feeling uplifted.

Stephanie-gaga, talked about literally being thrown in the garbage in school, having the word Fagot painted on her locker (hate that word) and more and said even now it’s still there those early messages of inferiority. She had to fight to find her confidence and now fights so kids don’t lose theirs, especially gay kids who are so much more likely to end their lives.

We moved 4 times before I turned 16 and I went to 3 different schools before high school. This meant we were always the new kids in town. Add to that the fact that my mother dressed us in hand-me-downs and K-mart well before anyone wanted to wear K-mart for anything but hunting attire and you got a nice beginning for bullying.

I was lucky, the very reasons folks might have wanted to bully me, I was chubby or as we said back then husky, also protected me. At 11, I was five foot six and weighed a hundred forty pounds. I didn’t really know how to throw a punch, so when kids tried to hassle me I would strangle them until they said, “I quit.” It was very effective.

But puberty brought me two solid years of hell in the 7th and 8th grade when I felt like I was literally fighting for my life. I never thought about suicide but know full well the feeling of wishing it would all end somehow, anyhow.

Then I had an explosion, a bursting out of my shell, suddenly my husky became shapely, my weird hair became Janis Joplin’s wild mane, my leave me alone, became leave me the FUCK alone and I burst into high-school as a rock-and-roll robin hood. My mission was to fight evil and scream loudly the lyrics to Pat Benatar’s “Hell is for children” up and down the halls of Rumson Fairhaven High School. Oh what a little badass I was.

But not a bully, a champion of the bullied when I could, if anything, because I realized in those terrible two years before my metamorphosis that the only thing worse than a bully are all the kids (and teachers!) who know its wrong and watch, doing nothing, because they are too scare of confrontation. Think this is innocent, think about what happened in Nazi Germany. If all the people who watched knowing it was wrong but too scared to stand up, had risen up, Hitler would have been killed long before he’d had a chance to murder millions.

Okay yes, I know not standing up to a bully when you are a kid is not like not stopping the Nazi’s but it’s a seed.

Look at all the people who let George W. Bush and Dick Cheney do as they pleased even though they knew it was wrong because standing against them was too scary, too politically risky.

We have to go to the seed. Teach kids in school that bullying is wrong, but also teach them sitting back and watching bullying is JUST AS WRONG. We have to teach the bullied kids that they are as GAGA says, born that way. They are fabulous just the way they are.

How many of us buy cruelty free products, be kind to the animals we say, and I agree.. I do, but also my dears, also, Gay, straight, black, white, short, tall, skinny fat, whatever, we all deserve a cruelty free childhood!

Let’s start stamping our schools “CRUELTY FREE!”

I know what its like to be a bully too, in the 4th grade I beat up a kid I had nothing against just to impress some bullies I wanted to be friends with. I don’t know his last name or where he lives. But if for any reason Stephen of Bradley Beach New Jersey who would have been in the 4th grade hmmm in 74 or 75 is reading this, please know I am so sorry.

I know what it’s like to be bullied, terribly for two years and wonder if hell is what we go thru now, not what happens after you die when you are really really bad.

I know what its like to scream in victory to inspire a gang of teens to forget about who is cool and who is not AND just rock!

But here I am, so many years later. I own a company. I write. I blog. I talk on the radio. I have friends who love me. I paint from the soul. I have a fantastic and gorgeous Gf. I am out loud and proud!! You would think my self- confidence is pretty damn high, but you know what, every time I walk into a restaurant and eat alone, I am brought back to the cafeteria in Forrestdale elementary school when nobody wanted to sit with me because they were too afraid to stand against a bully who had targeted me.

Gaga says the sting of being thrown in the garbage is still there when she performs for sell out crowds and I know what she means. I know exactly how she feels.

But I am also, now, glad it happened to me, glad, because I know what cruelty feels like and what cowardice feels like and I want nothing to do with either ever again.

If you are a kid reading this or a mom, an aunt, a teacher, a friend, a neighbor, if you are a human being, stand up against bullies, old and young,. Risk confrontation, risk embarrassment. Be brave!

Think of the Arab spring
Think of the American Revolution
And think of kids all over this country right now, terrified, desperate and wanting to end it all.

Say NO to bullies

And gaga I say simply keep rocking my dear, if I had given birth to you
I’d be super proud

Rush Limbaugh is a misogynistic, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-semetic, windbag, yuck-face-yahoo, prick from hell.

Ahhh feel better

What I’d really like to know is how and why is this bastard still on the air?

And how and why is he popular?

“Femi-nazi?” I don’t know where to be more offended as a Jew or a as a woman?!

But I think he went to a whole new low even for him, with his recent “Slut” comments.

Although really if women around the country spent more time looking at Limbaugh’s face, we wouldn’t need birth-control, as this ugly mug could turn you off in a Viagra factory.

First Amendment, that’s what this imp hides behind.

Well how bout a new amendment, called, “Shut the fuck up ugly bastard prick!” and we just push him off the air.

I mean really dears
YUCK

S’all I’m saying….

Oh my dears I’ve stayed a little quiet about Syria, because while this girl truly cares about mankind, I’m also painfully aware that I’m not the savviest political polly on the block.

But sometimes, you gotta just put yourself out there. Even if you can’t go head to head with some of my scholarly readers.

The Arab spring has filled my heart with pride and joy, watching people fight for and win their independence is a wonderful thing. But I do worry about what force will fill the void. What exactly is the Moslem brotherhood and will they one day morph into Taliban part two?

Syria has been a well-needed ally for peace in the Middle East and so I understand the hesitance to take them on in defense of the revolution.

There is also the little fact that we just got our tushies out of George Bush Junior’s war, cost us trillions and thousands of lives.

No matter how great the cause, for America in the throws in the worst economic melt-town since the great depression to enter another war?
Not a good thing!

But how do we justify sitting back and watching the murder of innocent civilians?

Yesterday Abdo Hussam el Din, Syria’s deputy oil minister, announced that he was defecting from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to join the revolution.

A brave man and hopefully the beginning of a tide of brave men and women.

Hillary Clinton, (love her) is loudly protesting the humanitarian crisis, but will diplomacy and U.N. pressure help?

Humanitarian workers are not being allowed to help. Babies are being murdered. Families afraid of being shelled are burying their dead at night. The press is shut out.

The snippets of news we get are from amateur videos and journalists who snuck in, some of whom are dieing.

Al-Assad’s forces are slaughtering civilians, without mercy even attacking a funeral procession.

We see video of victims in hospitals chained to their beds with torture devices nearby.

It’s horror after horror what little we get to see of it. One can only imagine how much worse it really is.

Now even Russia and China appear, at least publicly to be decrying the violence.

Can we all work together to force Syria to back down? Can we avoid another war?

The United Nations has said at least 7,500 people have died in the crackdown, while opposition activists put the toll at more than 9,000.

Russia has been the source of Syria’s weapons. China a buddy too. Now another lovely dictator North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledges his support of the Syrian regime.

Wow is there like a dictator club? Do they all get together, play cards and shoot babies?

Yech.

What do you think my dears?
What should America do?

It’s the one night, when no matter how bad things are you can just put it away and get lost in the glamour of Hollywood old and new.

Watching Billy Crystal, the best Oscar host since Bob Hope take the stage was just the right touch of old-style-new-style vaudeville meets 2012 that Oscar needed. There were great moments for me like when the super real and wonderful Octavia Davis won for best supporting actress and got a standing ovation.

I was a bit sad when Viola Davis did not pick up the Oscar for her spectacular job in The Help, losing to buddy Meryl Streep. But after 29 years of being nominated and not winning I think Meryl did deserve her moment and the woman is so charming, so un-affected and so gracious you just love to see her shine.

And of course “The Artist” swept the Oscars. When French actor Jean Dujardin won for best actor it proved that the voice is not necessarily needed to show great acting talent. The man is something of a cross between Fred Astaire and David Niven, Old Hollywood style for sure.

But speaking of Old Hollywood…

My favorite moment of the night was when 82-year-old Christopher Plummer took the stage to win his first Oscar. The elegant, dapper, humble man was a wonder to behold.

Between Betty White and Christopher Plummer, wow it gives you hope that 50 really is the new 30!

And today is Monday, back to the normal life most of us have but with perhaps a little pixie dust sprinkled on us from a night of dazzle. I went to sleep last night dreaming of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, the great icons of yesteryear and today’s new heirs to the throne of wonder. Yes indeed I’m quite a sucker for the Oscars. Sigh.

“Whitney Houston is dead at 48 years old”

It seemed impossible to comprehend but when Saturday Night Live flashed a quick picture of Whitney and Molly Shannon some years back, we knew it wasn’t a mistake.

I can hear her music in my head as I type this. “The greatest love of all”

What a magical song.

But it was Dolly Parton’s (another amazing babe) song “I will always love you” that really seemed to make the world stop.

I’d heard rumors about Whitney being gay for years. This rumor didn’t shock me. The idea that she might have spent her life hiding her true self seemed like agony and anyone in that much pain would have that much passion.

What shocked me was when this elegant, beautiful talented, regal woman entered into the agonizing marriage to Bobby Brown, (any man who beats a woman is less then human but to beat Whitney Houston, throw the bastard in jail and lose the key!).

But when the news came out that was addicted to drugs. I just couldn’t believe it. I don’t know which of these things seemed worse, Brown or Drugs. Same really.

During her attempted comeback I watched her struggle through a song but those otherworldly magical pipes were eroded from drugs and the sound that came out of her was no longer the Whitney we’d grown to love. Still I thought, many great voices were almost more interesting after life had taken its toll. I still love the raspy sad-ness that had crept into Billy Holiday’s voice in her latter days.

I’ve always been a hard-core rock chick, shocking I know, so pop rarely reaches my soul, but Whitney’s glorious voice had won my heart. I even submitted to watching a Kevin Costner film (I think watching this man is like watching paint dry) just to see beautiful Whitney belt it out in MY BODY GUARD.

She died on the eve of an event that she had ruled for years The Grammy’s.
At a place I’ve stayed at, that’s associated with Hollywood’s glory. The Beverly Hilton, just hours before a party by her mentor and discoverer Clive Davis.

The Grammy’s tonight will be shadowed by this great loss and maybe this is right. We need an event this huge to mourn a loss this great.

I don’t really care whether or not Whitney was gay, only that she was sad, clearly sad and we have watched her whither away for many years.

She now joins the tragic list of mega-talented, tortured glorious women, weakened by drugs who died too young. Billy Holiday …Janus Joplin….Whitney Houston.

on other news
love that obama struck a deal today to get some money from the
bad big banks and into the pockets of victims struggling with fore-closure
i do hope congress stops being ruled by the party of NO
and starts offering more help with refinancing
but im glad obama was able to get something great done without the NO No bastards
i like it when dems and republicans can work together

as to the repubs i gotta say i can’t stand rick santorum
but i like that he just caused this big upset
winning three states, romney was just a bit too smug for my nerves
although between newt rick and mitt
if i had to have one of them romney seems the least horrible

feeling way bad for syria
and worse about how to help them
if america gets into it
then we’re also in yet another war
not to mention tangling with russia and china
who are backing the bastard syrian super prick

ILL NEVER EAT PITA BREAD AGAIN!!!!
so i guess it’s gonna be lots of under the table
helping and hoping others jump in
i wish it didnt always have to america who does the right thing
maybe we are so broke and strapped from our economy
iraq
aphganistan
that it would be nice if some other folks would jump in
HELLO NICE OTHER FOLKS WHERE ARE YOU??
but watching the footage of all those murdered children
does feel about as bad as it gets
and americans well we have a heart don’t we?

sigh
here’s hoping for peace soon for syria
a new owner for romney’s dog
a nice break for american home-owners
and a hearty how-are-you to gail and ratney for your groovy comments

rock on

A good friend of mine used to tell me stories about her mom being a maid in the 1950’s and 60’s south and how her mother and her escaped to the north for fear of their lives. I have head that the migration of black Americans from the south to the north was a huge one, (over a million someone told me last night) and it’s easy to see why, not that there wasn’t prejudice in the north too, of course, but not like this!

I remember as a child traveling with my family from Jersey to Florida and sometimes across from Florida to California. In the deep south in the 70’s, it was best not to let anyone know we were Jewish. I recall a gas station that had signs above one of its restrooms with one word “colored.” Oh the sign had been removed of course but the fact that the wall had been painted with the sign on, left the non-painted imprint of the word. The message was, its illegal not to have this sign up,but we want to make damn sure you all see the imprint anyway. It imprinted on me all right. I was just relieved not to see another imprint that read “JEWS.”

I am thrilled that the HELP and its brilliant actresses, Viola Davis who is something of a goddess and the amazing Octavia Spencer. have been raking in the awards. These are two women Hollywood would not normally see fit to give starring roles too, because they don’t fit the normal Hollywood leading lady look or age or color, (some prejudices are still alive and well hmmm).

In a sea of big stars who are great but really honey don’t need any more recognition, it was wonderful to see two not-so-known actresses get up there on the podium and keep it real for all of us.

I think their SAG award acceptance speeches last night, humbled everyone in the audience, especially that of Viola Davis.

I hope Hollywood, doesn’t forget that audiences like to see real women, not just young women or pretty women or white women.

Fighting racism is an un-going battle and The Help Helps.