In the town I live in, there’s only one place to get the state-required voter ID. It’s way out beyond the end of the bus line, and its hours are inconvenient and unpredictable. Also, the IDs cost like $30; the people who passed the voter ID law obviously didn’t think that was a budget-breaker for anyone who MATTERED.
If you have difficulty getting a voter ID, here are some thoughts:
– Contact a church. (I wish I could say contact ANY church, but to be honest, if you look unconventional, and you don’t know which churches in your town are the progressive ones, look for a Unitarian church. I suspect most synagogues would be more helpful than most evangelical churches, but I don’t know that from personal experience.)
When I was a church secretary, if someone had called and said, “I want to register to vote, but I don’t have a car and I don’t have $30 for an ID,” I’m pretty sure our entire governing board would have been lining up to help you out.
In this part of the country, nuns are a good bet, too.
– Contact the local Democratic Party office.
– Contact a YMCA or a YWCA. Did you know that fighting racism is actually part of the Y’s charter? Pretty sure somebody in that office will be able to help you get the ID you need to register.
– Go to your town’s website and look for a pro-diversity organization – a Multicultural Awareness Center, something like that. Give them a call.
– Call your library reference desk and ask if they know of anyone who could help.
I don’t actually think this would help, but it would be interesting: Call the local office of your senators and your representative, and ask if they can help you get a voter ID. At least it might be entertaining to hear them sputter.
October 14, 1977, Anita Bryant is pied for her antigay bigotry at a press conference in Des Moines, IA.
It was 40 years ago today…
Never gets old.
40 years on and it still is gratifying
Anita’s still alive and kicking and being anti-gay. Thom Higgins, who threw the pie when he was 27 – and was poetically from Beaver Dam – passed away 17 years later at 44. Info on his life is here. The pie throwing was a big deal. In an age before the internet let gays feel connected, and long before ACT UP, the pie showed small pockets of gays that we could fight back.
it showed that gays were human beings, who might be in the room with you, that you had been accepting as being equals and treating as people. you didnt suspect them as bieng gay, why should you treat them different after? do they become less human after finding out?
i mean, its almost like you just found out they have an oppinion on your bullshit
She was “pied” on TV. All across the country, people got to see proof that the LGBT community weren’t going to just sit there and take it. People who thought they had no choice but to stay silent saw a horrible woman get humiliated on live TV.
I’m so sad about the Brazilian elections. This is tragic, why is nobody talking about it? Just bc it doesn’t happen in your country doesn’t mean it’s not going to affect our fellow LGBT+ community and women.
If WE aren’t talking about this as a massive universal defeat, how will newspapers will?
This is a country that just 30 years ago was under a military dictatorship, where many people literally gave their blood in name of democracy. Now we are watching this country elect a man that not only is homophobic, racist and sexist, but who has also said that the mistake of the dictatorship was to torture people instead of killing them. This is a man who has exalted and complimented a dictator who has raped women and tortured people, including children. Brazil is electing a man who has said in front of the cameras that he would not rape a woman because she was too ugly.
I am a woman and I am terrified. I have many LGBT friends who are terrified. The minorities in Brazil fear for their lives. This is a terrible time for us.
#EleNão
#NotHim
his supporters chanted “Bolsonaro is gonna kill the fags” in a crowded subway with no hesitation in São Paulo and destroyed a sign that served as tribute for Marielle Franco(killed earlier this year for her ideas) in Rio
he talks about putting an end to activism and leaving the UN
An anguished question from a Trump supporter: “Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?”
The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters – the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning, the ones who think and the ones who don’t…
That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.”
That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.”
That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem.”
That when he made up stories about seeing muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue.”
That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn’t care, you chirped, “He sure knows me.”
That when you heard him illustrate his own character by telling that cute story about the elderly guest bleeding on the floor at his country club, the story about how he turned his back and how it was all an imposition on him, you said, “That’s cool!”
That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.
That when you heard him brag that he doesn’t read books, you said, “Well, who has time?”
That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, “That makes sense.”
That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, “Yes!”
That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man’s coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, “What a great guy!”
That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, “Thumbs up!”
That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, “That’s the way I want my President to be.”
That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they’re supposed to be regulating and you have said, “What a genius!”
That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, “That’s smart!”
That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was the middle of water and you have said, “That makes sense.”
That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, “falling in love” with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, “That’s statesmanship!”
That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids. has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas – he explains that they’re just “animals” – and you say, “well, ok then.”
That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.
What you don’t get, Trump supporters in 2018, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as stupid may be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also…hear me…charitable.
Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are *less* flattering.
The Paradox Machine 