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Articles by Johnny Townsend
Who should pay for infrastructure?
Seattle, like many cities, is facing a budget shortfall. The mayor and city council are deciding which public workers they might need to lay off and which cuts to public services they might need to inflict on the city’s residents. Seattle is one of the richest cities in the country, in one of the richest countries on the planet. Why do so many cities, counties and states continually face these same challenges? Infrastructure, it turns out, costs money.
Voting Third Party Is Collective Punishment Against the Innocent
Voting third party, or not voting at all, won’t stop the genocide in Palestine and Lebanon. It won’t get us universal healthcare. Kamala Harris supports genocide. Even if that weren’t the case, there are many other reasons to dislike Democrats, who at best give lip service to healthcare, education, human rights, and the environment, but then rarely follow through with meaningful policies. They’re “better” than Republicans but that’s a pretty low bar.
Guest Opinion: Let's preserve LGBTQ culture
We must preserve LGBTQ content while we can. Russia has laws against "gay propaganda." In Hungary and other eastern European nations there are varying degrees of discrimination and censorship as well. In the U.S., right-wing lawmakers and school boards are already banning some LGBTQ books.
Oppression Never Gives Up on Its Own
Fifty years ago, on June 24, 1973, a transgender woman from my LDS congregation in New Orleans survived the UpStairs Lounge fire, an arson at a French Quarter gay bar that took the lives of thirty-two people. Regina’s partner wasn’t so lucky. Neither was Inez Warren, who died along with her two gay sons. Neither was Mitch Mitchell, who initially escaped but ran back in for his partner Horace Broussard.
Problem Deniers vs. Problem Solvers
When I was a teenager in the late 1970s, there was already a great deal of talk about overpopulation, though we’d just passed four billion humans on the planet. My religious leaders would scoff at suggestions that bringing more babies into the world could be damaging in any way. God wanted us to bring as many babies into the world as we could. A popular Mormon musical of the time had certain characters singing about “Zero Population” to demonstrate how corrupt they were.
Football Has Fans, Religion Exists, and Climate Change Is Real, Too
When I came out to a straight Mormon friend years ago, he reacted as positively as his cultural background would allow. “I don’t understand it,” he said, “but then, I don’t understand why some people don’t like basketball, either. I just accept that it’s true.” My friend’s reaction is a healthy way of approaching reality most of us could incorporate into our own lives. I’m a former Mormon who is now atheist. Religion pretty much bores me, at least the way it’s practiced much of the time.
Ye Cannot Serve Both Love and Hate
“The shooter is Mormon,” I texted my husband the moment I learned the man who’d killed five and injured eighteen at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ bar was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My husband texted a single word back a moment later. “Arggg!” After writing the first book on the Upstairs Lounge fire, an arson at a French Quarter gay bar that killed thirty-two people in 1973, I react to news of bar deaths with an added degree of horror. Happy Land. The Station. Pulse.
"I Am Vanessa Guillen" Recounts Latina-Led Fight Against Military Sexual Abuse
Two years ago, city hall plaza in our hometown, Richmond, California, was the scene of a protest vigil organized by Estefany Sanchez and her two sisters. Estefany is a Richmond resident and an Army veteran whose experience of sexual harassment in the military led her to identify strongly with the tragic case of Vanessa Guillen, a 20-year old soldier at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas.
Ye cannot serve both love and hate
"The shooter is Mormon," I texted my husband the moment I learned the man who'd killed five and injured eighteen at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ bar was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My husband texted a single word back two minutes later. "Arggg!" After writing the first book on the Upstairs Lounge fire, an arson at a French Quarter gay bar that killed thirty-two people in 1973, I react to news of bar deaths with an added degree of horror. Happy Land. The Station. Pulse.
Military to American Youth: You Belong to Us
Ah, the children! They belong to us, sayeth the Department of Defense. At least some of them do. It’s a little more complicated than it used to be, thanks to one of the changes that occurred back in 1973, a year of startling historical significance. That was the year of the Roe v. Wade decision and, oh yeah, the Watergate hearings (remember those?). But there was more.
Greed and Holiness Intertwine: Will Capitalism Reign During the Millennium?
I can’t wait for the Millennium when we all work six days a week, for either twelve, fourteen or even sixteen hours a day. I can’t wait for that serene society, when Satan has been bound and we can send our six-year-old children to work in the mines or shuck oysters from dawn until dusk. I can’t wait for this future without war, when there are also no workplace safety rules. That will be heaven on Earth, a thousand years of peace and happiness.
‘Positive Thinking’ Industry Exposed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Although the late Barbara Ehrenreich was best known for her 2001 bestselling book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which chronicled the real-life impacts of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, she made an equally great contribution to economic justice with her subsequent book exposing the cult of positive thinking. Ehrenreich, who passed away on September 1, 2022, at age 81, had started her professional life with a PhD in cell biology. She didn’t relegate her journalism to mere facts.
Not the New Normal, These Are the Good Old Days
If we dare turn on the news anymore, we see reports of record heat, flash floods, and flash droughts. We see 34 million people displaced when a third of their country is inundated by record monsoons. We see reservoirs running dry, fire tornadoes, entire towns wiped off the map by wildfires. There are as many climate disasters these days as there are mass shootings, and they take an even bigger toll.
Power Mongering Politicos Plus a Mindless Electorate Threaten Our Nation
While Darwin was correct about evolution over eons, the human species will not evolve into creatures with gills which can survive on both land and sea as climate change melts the polar ice caps and sea levels rise flooding away shore lines and entire states like Florida.
That Assault on Trump
Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Donald Trump raged today after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida and broke open a safe, apparently looking for documents that Trump illegally took from the White House. To set the record straight. Trump is no longer president of the United States. He’s a normal citizen. He may believe he’s still president because he never conceded the 2020 election, but he lost that election.
Be a Jerk, for Jesus
It’s not just the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and Patriot Front anymore. Countless new social clubs and religious organizations are sprouting up across the country to follow their lead. Liars for the Lord. Creeps for Christianity. Be a Jerk for Jesus. Obviously, fanatics to any cause, religious or not, can be bad for society, but presently in the U.S., it is fanatical Christians posing the biggest threat. One way to tell? They feel simultaneously offended and proud to hear it.
haiti freedom
Today’s Haiti was born of the world’s first successful slave revolution of 1804, feared and despised by the racist U.S. ruling class. Subject to repeated U.S. military occupations, today’s Haiti still suffers from a U.S. backed Haitian kleptocracy and a Biden-backed de facto dictatorship. Gang violence is rampant, often linked to politicians; unemployment is as high as 70%; and there is no meaningful COVID healthcare throughout the country.
Let Reagan Be Reagan
The first presidential election in which I voted was 1984 and Ronald Reagan got my nod. Back then, I was a Cold War officer-to-be and I wasn’t convinced that Walter Mondale and the Democrats had a handle on anything. Today, I’d be more likely to vote for Mondale, I think, but I still have some affection for Reagan, who dreamed big. Reagan’s biggest dream was eliminating nuclear weapons, which he came close to doing with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Ginger-Based Beverage Company
The pandemic brought isolation, uncertainty, and anxiety into homes worldwide, but for one family, it also delivered inspiration. The Shah family put their talents together and emerged from the lockdown with Glish — an all-new ginger-based beverage. "The months of quarantine showed my wife and me that the world needs a fun, guilt-free beverage everyone can drink together," says Rushabh Shah.
Candidate Donations Requests
If you’re like me, you get a hundred or more fundraising emails every day from corporate and “centrist” Democratic candidates. They offer dire predictions about the end of civilization as we know it if we don’t send our money their way NOW! To be honest, the situation is dire, but more often than not, these folks aren’t the solution. Two incumbents I supported in the last election cycle reneged on their promises, so they’ve lost my support until after they deliver.
Balancing Constitutional Limitations with the Rights of Nature
On December 1, 2021, the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court delivered a landmark ruling revoking two previously-granted mining concessions from companies seeking to expand into the exceptionally biodiverse Los Cedros cloud forest.
Why Workers Are Turning to Unions
Amy Dennett long endured understaffing, low pay and indifferent bosses in her job at the American Red Cross in Asheville, North Carolina. But she decided she’d had enough when management’s failure to provide basic resources forced her and her coworkers to build, jury-rig and dig into their own pockets for items needed to operate the blood donation center.
"A Gastric Bypass for Global Warming "
At twenty-five, I weighed 190 pounds. Horrified, I fasted forty days over four months while walking two hours a day and lost fifty pounds, which I kept off for another fifteen years. A success story by almost any measure. This is where we as a civilization were decades ago as scientists who understood greenhouse gases and the corporate leaders who suppressed their research. The planet’s “weight,” or temperature, might have been managed at that point and kept under control.
Coats when it's cold, masks when there's virus
COVID infections are skyrocketing again. Thankfully, there's only a modest rise in hospitalizations and deaths, but those "modest" numbers would have seemed horrific two years ago. Now we shrug them away. Many "lighter" cases still have people sick and miserable, missing work or infecting coworkers, isolating from family or infecting loved ones. But since mask mandates have been lifted almost everywhere, most of these people will not wear one. "I don't have to!" they insist. No, they don't.
How Rich Fayden Became the Unsung Genius Behind Some of Music Industry’s Brightest Names
Anyone can dream of building a career in the music industry, but not everyone has the ear to find the best talents hidden among the crowd. It takes talent to determine who will be able to make it big in the cutthroat landscape of the music world. And yet, Rich Fayden seems to have no difficulty picking out the gems from the rest. The consultant and executive producer has worked with many established artists and record labels in the music industry.
Mr Bet Casino Review 2022: All Details Here
Those who would like to start their way in online gambling face a great choice of gaming clubs, operating in the industry. And it seems impossible to select one! Even though the diversity is really insane, some casinos really stand out from the rest, and Mr Bet is one of them. The gambling site welcomes slots fans since 2017, and it’s popular due to its great conditions and enormous games collection.
Together we rise," reads the motto on a wall of the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The school serves about 600 students in the second thru fourth grades. Over ninety percent are Latinx. Nineteen children between the ages of nine and eleven and two of their teachers were murdered there Tuesday, by an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle. The shooter, Salvador Ramos, was killed at the school by a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Prime Ape Planet: A successful NFT project about to make the next big leap!
The biggest privilege any NFT project on the blockchain can have is a thriving community of users who love the project. Many factors contribute to the success of an NFT project and the Prime Ape Planet is a project that played it all right. The Prime Ape Planet has been one of the most successful projects on the blockchain with record-breaking sales. There are various metrics of their NFT collection that make them one of the most desirable collections of NFTs on the blockchain.
America's Cult of Selfishness
I couldn't help a double-take when the rusty old truck passed me on a western Kentucky highway. Painted on the side of its faded greenish hood was a bright red circle bisected by a similarly-hued diagonal bar that was superimposed over a white hypodermic needle. Below the hand-painted “artwork” were the letters “F.T.M.,” which I took to mean “F*** the Mandate.” "FREEDOM" was also hand-painted in white letters on the hood.
Toward a Survivable Identity
Humanity is currently constituted in collectives as states. A state purports to define itself by adherence to a set of values, but ultimately it is defined by its territorial borders in relation to other states, and the power it can exert through networks of influence to secure resources. Another way a large portion of humanity defines itself in relation to the cosmos is through religion. Every major religion defines itself not by physical territory but by ideology.
Do You Smell Smoke?
A gubernatorial candidate’s slogan is "Jesus. Guns. Babies." She proudly announces she wants a theocracy in America. Elected officials call their political enemies "demons" and "reptilian lizard people." They claim that those who disagree with them are cannibals, aliens, robots.
I’m Spending My Children’s Inheritance
Imagine you’re fifty-five years old. Not elderly. Not young. But you could have had another twenty or thirty good years ahead. Only you don’t. You’ve just been diagnosed with stage 4, terminal cancer. As a reasonably moral person, how would we react? Our decision will also determine what we do in the face of devastating climate change. When I was a child, I was shocked to discover that people facing death didn’t suddenly become nicer, more righteous. They were about to meet God, after all.
Mother's Day and Roe v Wade
This post is written in two parts, because I feel compelled to begin with some comments on the radical history of Mother’s Day and its contrast to the Supreme Court and the leaked majority opinion on Roe vs. Wade. Mother's Day Celebration What I remember most about Mother’s Day from my childhood are the peonies. We’d fill a vase with cut flowers and I’d try to rescue the ants crawling on their stems.
Disinformation Governance Board v. Free Speech
Twice in the month of April Barack Obama spoke about “disinformation.” First at the University of Chicago and then at Stanford University he claimed that democracy is at risk because of social media. Democracy is certainly at risk but not because of anyone’s tweets. His words were really meant to frighten Americans into accepting censorship should anyone dare to present a narrative that differs from the state’s. Of course, that isn’t what Obama said.
Black LDS Members Deserve an Apology
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have consistently refused to apologize for past teachings deeming Black members of the Church inferior. Current leaders say they can’t apologize on behalf of long-dead prophets. They want to look forward, not back. But one can’t move forward after past mistakes without making amends, whether the harm done was intentional or not. And that can’t be done without an apology.
Is the Democratic Party Dying, Again?
How quickly the abnormal becomes normal. If you had told me three months ago that Russia would invade Ukraine and that the U.S. response would be $54 billion in “aid,” much of it consisting of missiles, artillery, bullets, and other forms of weaponry, and that this huge amount of “aid” would be supported by every Democrat in the House and Senate, without exception, I don’t think I would have believed you.
Retro Pop: Episode 69
Happy Mother’s Day out there to our listeners who happen to be mothers. In honor of this special day, Johnny and Matt cover The Alamo! isssa joke. Anyways, The Alamo, a disastrous military incursion between an overreaching government and free peoples, became a symbol for hope and eventual freedom. Remember the Alamo with Retro Pop’s first history based episode in over 2 years!
LADWP Training Program: Power and Jobs for the People
Before he began working for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s earn-and-learn Utility Pre-Craft Trainee program (UPCT) seven years ago, Manuel Hernandez had no experience in any construction trade. The pay was a step down from his salary of $40,000 a year as a community organizer, but he knew there was room to move up. The program is operated by the LADWP and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 18, and Hernandez is a journeyman electrical mechanic there.
Collectives Generate Healthy Money Talks, Empower People
Financial health is the elephant in the room that we avoid talking about in social situations, at work, and even with our loved ones, despite the fact that financial well-being has a profound effect on how we think and feel.
Make Italy Italy Again
Having lived two years in Italy decades ago, I fell in love with European programming when I discovered MHz a few years back. Naturally, I watched lots of French and German and Swedish shows too, but mostly I loved watching everything Italian I could find. And while it was as rejuvenating as a cold aranciata during ferragosto, watching the shows was unsettling, too. Italy had changed a great deal in forty years.
Happy Tax Day - It's Significance
Yes, it's That Day. Show of hands--who loves paying their federal taxes? No one? OK, let's hear why not. Warning: I'm going to fact-check you. Rancher: My taxes go to support welfare mothers and I work for a living. It's not fair. Fact-check: First, thank you for your hard work. In truth, however, just eight percent of our income taxes go to the social safety net for people in poverty and many of the recipients are poor rural working folks.
Why Pronouns Are Important?
I don’t use pronouns.” When I heard a coworker make this odd announcement during an employer-assigned study group, I was at first confused. The English teacher in me wanted to stop the lesson and ask everyone to diagram my coworker’s sentence. The employee who introduced himself next said almost the same thing. “I don’t have pronouns.” The following employee agreed. “I don’t use any special pronouns, either.” I finally understood the problem.
Let’s Celebrate Higher Gas Prices
People are being murdered in Ukraine to fulfill the pathological needs of a dictator. We watch as children lie dead beside the road, as apartment buildings are bombed, as old women stumble over rubble trying to escape the shelling with their little dogs. “How terrible!” we say. “How awful!” “Someone should do something!” And then our gas prices start to rise as we cut Russia off from one of its major funding sources. We care, we insist, but not enough to put up with that.
Make Christians Christlike Again
After I was excommunicated from the Mormon Church, most of my friends cut me off. “It hurts too much to know our eternal friendship won’t endure past this life,” several told me.
Please Stop Moderate-Splaining! Democrats and Biden Set Themselves up for Loss
Photo by Edgar Colomba from Pexels Democrats are primed to lose in the mid-terms because Biden and the Squad have moved the party too far to the left. At least, that’s what moderate pundits tell us day after day. If we want to save democracy, they insist, we must return to the sane, sound principle of governing from the middle.
Parents who believe in sexual purity should still vaccinate their kids against HPV
With all the talk about COVID vaccinations, we forget that there are other useful vaccinations out there, too. "My children don't need to be vaccinated against HPV," I've heard some of my Mormon friends and family say. "They'll still be virgins when they get married.
Are We ‘Catastrophizing’ If We’re Really in a Catastrophe? Climate Action is Due Now
Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels We are warned against exaggerating, against hyperbole, against seeing events in the worst possible light. “Stop catastrophizing,” we’re told again and again. Things aren’t that bad. In fact, things are better for more people now, we hear, than in any time throughout human history. But are we catastrophizing if we’re truly in a catastrophe? Just how dire the threat of fascism is in the U.S. might be debatable, but that debate feels semantic.
Every Newscast Must Discuss Climate Newscasts Must Cover Climate
Photo by Arthur Ogleznev from Pexels “And now for the climate…” As David Sirota pointed out in a recent interview on MSNBC, an occasional mention of climate change isn’t enough to reflect the seriousness of the crisis. We need to cover climate in every single newscast. When I visited my grandparents as a child, I was fascinated by their obsession with the weather. They only received two stations in rural Mississippi, both a bit fuzzy.
The 2-Pt Conversation: Episode 704 - 2021 Divisional Round Preview / 2-pt Does Trivia: Week 2 on Apple Podcasts Original
Matt, Jack, David and Walker discuss the upcoming weekend’s extra important Divisional Round Games! The, returning champ Andrew Lenz hops on to host trivia against the boys, as well as friend Johnny Townsend and his own son! Who pulls it off this week?!
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