WI’s Blues

I received a missive from Fair Wisconsin Thursday morning about the lawsuit three board members of Wisconsin Family Action filed to challenge the constitutionality of the recently enacted domestic partnership protections.

Here’s the wording that blew my mind:

Fair Wisconsin is currently reviewing this lawsuit with our legal counsel, and we are prepared to defend domestic partnerships. We are hopeful that the State Supreme Court will recognize that domestic partnerships are not substantially similar to marriage, and will arrive at a fair and just decision that upholds these crucial protections for caring, committed couples.

Please read the boldfaced bit over. Basically, you want marriage protections for same-sex couples, but the bigots in your state are against that & have put an amendment into your state constitution saying that not only can same-sex marriage never be legal, but that no other law in the state can give those same people any benefits/legal standing that *looks anything like* marriage. As a result, same-sex people are hoping the State Supreme Court doesn’t view the partner benefits as anything like marriage — which, ironically for all the same sex couples – they are not. Not even close, actually, but it’s still like something out of Kafka.

Suddenly I don’t feel so welcome in Wisconsin, and while I know, in my heart, that it was ignorance and a lot of legwork by bigots that lead to these state constitutions, it shames me as an American that more people have not stood up & said ENOUGH. (I really do believe that most people want me & Rachel to be able to share each other’s health insurance, and mostly I do. )


Kumar: Indian Drag Queen in Singapore

Kumar is an Indian drag queen who works & lives in Singapore. A documentary about hir was broadcast in 2006 that’s found its way to YouTube.

and you can see hir do a bit of stand-up that’s also in three parts

but may be harder to understand without subtitles – and as zie points out, zie talks fast, on top of the regional humor about the first family of Singapore, Malaysia, and the Chinese in Singapore, but I think the joke about rooster eggs translates okay.

Blog Stuff

Just FYI, because of the recent spamming of the RSS feed and other technical errors, we’ll be doing a lot of tech overhaul of the blog in the next couple of days. It it acts funny, that’s why.

Needles

I’m sure some of you don’t believe in this sort of thing, because I’m the same way about a lot of alternative medicine, as it’s called.

Except that I struggled for a long time with the nasty evil twins of anxiety & depression after 9/11, & it was only after my sister got her acupuncturist to put a few dozen needles in me that I was able to start getting better. Before that, nothing worked, not meds, not yoga, not anything. It was as if something had to be moved out before any change could start to happen, & that session was what got it all going.

If you do believe in this sort of thing, then it’s much easier to just recommend Chrysalis Acupuncture. I’ve been going for years now & I love it. I still don’t believe in it, but it really does seem to help. The acupuncturist says:

When the outsides don’t match the insides and agony is produced–I’m so there for them. It’s why I named my place Chrysalis–on my brochure I define it as: The protective covering that provides safety for a caterpillar while it transforms into a butterfly. My favorite favorite patients are people who have the courage to change. I live to be there to support them during the transition. Of any kind.

What it seems to help with: fertility, back pain, chronic pain, indigestion/digestive issues, anxiety, stress, insomnia = basically a lot of the things that Western medicine isn’t very good at treating.

& Yes, the practitioners at this salon are very trans & LGBT friendly. So go. No excuses. If you do, tell them Helen sent you.

JenniferBoylan.net

Just so people know, Jenny Boylan has re-done her website & blog — well okay, she decided to re-do her website & blog, & then Betty re-designed it & re-built it.

For a reasonable price, hint hint, for those looking for any website help.

Contact Betty Crow if you’d like to talk to her about designing or building a website.

It goes without saying, I suppose, that she also did my site, but what you don’t know is that she also did Tristan Taormino’s OpeningUp.net, lookandlisten.org, leagueofcomposers.org, animation.to, & soon www.bigshow.cm.