A Conservative Lesbian, the blog, was down for the last five days due to a malware attack that my Web host says originated from the Ukraine. If you got a warning screen telling you of the infection and you clicked through anyway, please use your anti-virus software to scan your computer’s hard drive. An online service called Sucuri.net gave me the all-clear around 10 am this morning. I submitted a request to Google to review A Conservative Lesbian and 12 hours later they lifted the warning screen. Yay!
I appreciate all the kind messages my dear gentle readers and fellow bloggers sent — thank you! I missed you.
Constantin Films made copyright claims to YouTube to force the company to take down the popular clips, which put subtitles over the German dialog. They said they were protecting the actors, but I couldn’t find information on how this would affect the actors except by making them a LOT more famous.
‘Downfall’ director Oliver Hirschbiegel expressed an opposing view in an interview with New York magazine’s Vulture: “Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one. I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director. I think it’s only fair if now it’s taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like.”
“Killing ‘Hitler Reacts’ has to be the worst decision in movie-making history since someone gave Rob Schneider a job,” says Nick Douglas, senior editor at our viral-minded partner Urlesque. “Before, there was this film called ‘Downfall’ that a few American film and history buffs knew. After the ‘Downfall’ parodies, there was a whole new audience. I’m tempted to say it’s because Old Media doesn’t get it — but I think it’s more nuanced. By now, most studios and labels sort of ‘get’ what’s going on — they just want more control.”
Douglas also wonders if the videos’ creators may be able to defend their mash-ups as protected works of parody. The Supreme Court defines parody as “the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works,” Douglas points out. “Seems like the ‘Downfall’ parodies fit that description. They make comparisons between an important historical event as interpreted by the film and much sillier modern events. But who’s going to fight a court battle over a YouTube clip?”
Constantin Films did not respond to PopEater’s request for comment.
However, I can summarize the Fox News interview. The Christian Legal Society is claiming that its freedom of speech and freedom of association are being limited by the University of California’s Hastings College of Law because they require members to sign a Statement of Faith and declare whether or not they are heterosexual. As I recall the discussion, gays and lesbians may join, but are not allowed to serve as leaders of the group because of their sexual orientation. The CLS representative claimed that Hastings was oppressing the group by dictating what it c0uld believe and violating its freedom to choose its leaders.
The representative for Hastings College of Law replied that the only thing that the college is denying the Christian Legal Society is a cut of student fees because separation of church and state requires that the state does not provide funds to religious organizations.
Here’s the thing: gay and lesbian equality is like a radioactive dye that shows the extent to which various religions have created enterprises for the purpose of getting the government to give them money that they can use to maintain and grow their organization.
When these religions are caught red-handed and armpit deep in the public purse, they have wall-eyed fits about the devastation that will befall the hostages they will abandon — widows, orphans, the sick, whatever — if they have to follow the same policies of non-discrimination that everyone else must adopt to receive government money. They chew the scenery about their freedom of speech and freedom of association. Basically, they create huge dramas to excite pity, demonize gays as the real bad guys, and drown out any honest dialogue.
These religions also use situations like this for fundraising purposes, so I expect it has been a HUGE cash cow. They also are used for propaganda purposes — in this case, further demonizing and de-humanizing gays and pushing the totally false objection to gay equality that it will mean religious groups can no longer discriminate against gays. Actually, thanks to the separation of church and state, religions always will be allowed to discriminate against gays all they want — AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT USING GOVERNMENT MONEY TO DO IT AND/OR ARE NOT DOING IT ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. In fact, in this case, the Christian Legal Society IS being allowed to use government land and buildings for their meetings and to discriminate against gays as much as they want — they just are barred by the Constitution from getting a cut of the Hastings’ student fees to do it.
If you think the Christian Legal Society SHOULD get a cut of student fees — money exacted from the students by force, just like taxes — then does that mean you are OK with the reverse situation of having government health insurance programs pay for abortions?
Photo of the crowd of Tea Party protesters in front of the Bel Air, Maryland, county courthouse listening to the speakers at the protest.
I attended part of the Tea Party protest on Main Street in Bel Air, Maryland, in front of the county courthouse this afternoon. I counted the protesters lining the street on both side and got at least 120 people — but I had to estimate the crowd in front of the courthouse, which was much bigger, so there were easily 250-to-300 people attending the protest. Bel Air, Maryland, is the birthplace of John Wilkes Booth — our contribution to the nation’s heritage — and he and his brother, Edwin, performed Shakespeare in the courthouse, which is the brick building on the right.
Thanks, Instapundit, for featuring this photo and linking my blog! Welcome, Instapundit readers! And, to answer Instapundit’s question, I took the photo with my red Samsung Flipshot. It has a resolution of three megapixels and also takes video. It’s a great MP3 player, too — I have a four-gig memory chip in it filled with MP3s and photos — I love it!
Hubert P. Yockey with an heirloom tomato from my garden in the summer of 2008.Hubert P. Yockey sitting on the porch with his favorite cat, Remington, and listening to music on his MP3 player while I worked on my heirloom tomato plants. Yes, that DOES mean they were in the front yard.Hubert P. Yockey, wearing his University of California at Berkeley rugby letter jacket, at the March 2010 concert by the Bel Air Community Band at the new Bel Air High School, in, you guessed it, Bel Air, Maryland.
My father is Hubert P. Yockey and today, April 15, 2010, is his 94th birthday. His cardiologist today cleared him to make it to at least 100. I’ve got to run to take photos at Bel Air’s Tea Party protest — on the same Main Street walked by John Wilkes Booth, in front of the county courthouse where he and his brother Edwin performed Shakespeare — but I wanted to get some photos posted and wish him a happy 94th birthday. (Remington is Dad’s favorite cat and sees him to bed every night.)
I just received an e-mail from the Maryland Senate Republican Slate with news that was so outrageous in terms of dictatorial nanny-statism that I thought it was a joke. And, thank God, it is — although obviously the author of the e-mail was taken in! I love dead-pan humor and fake news stories, especially as a response to events that are already so crazy it’s hard to pick a priority from which to commence mocking.
Anyhoo, the Maryland legislature is waging war on distracted driving and just banned driving while talking on a hand-held cellphone. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is a revenue enhancer that targets out-of-staters on I-95 and I-270 , since those are the only places in the state where there is likely to be both an offending cell phone using driver AND a police officer available, who will stop chasing down those undistracted SUV drivers doing 80-to-90 mph and bullying everyone in their way in order to wage war on the menace of holding a phone and talking while driving.
Marta Mossberg wondered just what our intrepid and all-knowing Maryland legislature would ban next. Her mock news story is deliciously apt and she skewers her prey skillfully in a piece published in the Baltimore Sun on April 13, 2010 but datelined two years in the future:
ANNAPOLIS — April 13, 2012
State legislators voted to close drive-throughs yesterday in a late-night, pizza-fueled frenzy in which they passed 20 other bills in the last minutes before the end of the session.
They said the ban, part of legislation outlawing eating while driving, will save lives. They also described it as one more victory in the war against distracted driving, which studies show is a major cause of accidents. Other distractions on the hit list: GPS systems, smoking, applying makeup, radios, Hooters billboards — and passengers, who may be required to be silent in coming years.
Maryland’s state song is, “Maryland, My Maryland!,” sung to the tune of, “Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!,” aka “Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!” Here is the 97th Regimental Band playing and singing “Maryland, My Maryland” — simply and utterly beautifully:
These lyrics popped out for me, on account of living in Bel Air, Maryland, birthplace of John Wilkes Booth, our contribution to the nation’s heritage:
She meets her sisters on the plain —
“Sic semper!” ’tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland! My Maryland!
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: “Sic semper” is just how we say “Aloha” in Maryland.
Former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, in an interview at The College of New Jersey, in Ewing, New Jersey, on Friday slandered same-sex marriage in terms that usually get him congratulations from his supporters and indignation from lesbians and gays, which results in more congratulations from his supporters, all of which Huckabee seems to feed on and revel in. However, he is in hot water about it today — calling same-sex marriage comparable to polygamy, incest and bestiality doesn’t seem to be working out as well this time as it has in the past, so Huckabee is trying the time-honored tactic of attacking the student journalist and claiming he was misquoted.
Oops! The student who interviewed him has posted a video of the transcript with the audio of the interview — guess who is the bald-faced liar?:
To put in perspective Huckabee’s personal moral sense and his attacks on the integrity of gay people for the BEING crime of homosexuality, it is worth recalling his easy attitude toward the DOING crime of murder that led him — over and over and over again — to grant clemency to Arkansas’s murderers against the advice of pretty much every expert in the Arkansas criminal justice system and the families of the victims. This includes the murderer he released who took the lives four police officers in Washington state in Nov. 2009 — for background, see the Washington Independent and Michelle Malkin.
New gentle readers: for more on my views on same-sex marriage and equality for lesbians and gays, please click those topics in my “Category” list in the sidebar:
As a basssoonist, I am a band and orchestra geek. I have a trained soprano voice — my teacher, Berthe Townsend, sang with the Paris Opera — but it cracks now and my range is shot, although that doesn’t stop me when my heart is filled with joy. And, thanks to Mrs. Townsend, I can fill an auditorium with my speaking voice without a microphone.
Show choirs like the one on “Glee” didn’t exist when I was in high school (1967-71). But the program shows why school music programs instill in teen-agers a work ethic and professionalism that give the kids who participate in them an edge for the rest of their lives.
I enjoy watching “Glee” for four characters: “Sue Sylvester,” the girls cheerleading squad coach, played by Jane Lynch; “Kurt Hummel,” the gay male soprano, played by Chris Colfer; “Artie Abrams,” an electric guitar player and paraplegic, played by Kevin McHale, who is able-bodied; and “Rachel Berry,” played by Lea Michele, whose singing talent is on a par with Barbra Streisand’s, judging from her grand slam performance of, “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” from the mid-season finale episode that aired on Dec. 9, 2009.
Both Jane Lynch and Chris Colfer are openly gay, which I experience as a wonderful affirmation. I wish straight people could fathom how healing and uplifting and inspiring it is JUST KNOWING THEY ARE GAY. Colfer’s character is openly gay, while Lynch’s character is in an odd place that positions her to come out sometime during the series: she shows up for a date with a man in swing dance zoot suit male drag — so very, very, VERY “We’ve all figured out you’re a lesbian — when will you?”
As for Artie Abrams, of course for all the battles I had to get wheelchair access for Margaret and all the places I pushed her in her wheelchair, I LOVE seeing a character in a wheelchair getting full inclusion in dance routines. I also was glad the show’s producers worked out that it is NOT access and NOT OK to carry someone in a wheelchair (it’s scary and dangerous and requires dependence on others) and stopped having their characters do that in an episode where they got the money to renovate the auditorium to be wheelchair accessible.
And, Rachel — well, God bless Rachel — the girl who is clear about her goals at an early age and has the talent and discipline to reach them, but gets constantly carped at by the lazy, foggy people around her. Think for a second and see if you can figure out what I love so much about Rachel.
Post-show bonus, the “Sue Sylvester” cover of Madonna’s “Vogue”:
The blonde Afro wig in the music video is an homage to Marlene Dietrich singing “Hot Voodoo” in the 1932 film, “Blonde Venus”:
