I hate Tookie

Tookie Williams is going to be executed by the State of California on December 13th if the governor turns down his petition for clemency. I had no idea just who Tookie was until I got a copy of the Bay View Reporter, one of the most unintentionally funny free rags published in San Francisco. They recently published an article (articles are indistinguishable from editorials in this paper) decrying the insensitivity of the San Francisco Police Department for arresting several pallbearers at a gang member's funeral. Doesn't SFPD have any respect? This is a funeral fercrissake.
Somehow, I don't think the pallbearers were busted for overdue parking tickets. But I digress.
Tookie was a founder of the Crips street gang in Los Angeles. He was convicted of committing four murders in eleven days. The San Francisco Chronicle published a picture of Tookie way back when. Picture a humongous afro atop some the most humongous arms (they look like legs, really) you've ever seen.
Ah but that was then, this is now. Today, Tookie is a changed man. He has written several age appropriate children's books, admonishing young readers to steer clear of gang life. Why, he has even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which, if he won it, would put him in such illustrious company as Yassir Arafat, Ariel Sharon, Henry Kissinger, and Anwar Sadat.
Snoop Dogg and Jamie Fox (who starred in a made for TV movie about Tookie's life titled "Redemption") are among the many people who have flocked to Tookie's cause. In fact, Tookie even has his own website at www.Tookie.com.
Now why am I ragging on Tookie? I mean, even I don't believe in capital punishment. You're supposed to show people that killing is wrong by killing them? C'mon, give me a break.
What makes me rag on Tookie is the same thing that makes me rag on Mumia. Just because someone has a terrific line of bullshit, doesn't make a murderer into a rock star. If, as the defense contends, Tookie didn't actually kill the people that he's accused of killing (a debatable point) nobody can tell me that the co founder of the Crips gang didn't kill SOMEBODY. And so what if someone finds God, Allah, the Buddha, Jehovah, Scientology, after they've been sentenced. Their victims are just as dead, regardless of what the victims' perpetrators have discovered about the meaning of life.
I'm very happy if Tookie has indeed changed his life (which can be easy to do when you've been on death row since 1981). I would also like to see capital punishment ended. But I do not consider this guy as any sort of example to underprivileged youth. There is a peculiar (and to me, hideously repulsive) story in this weeks' East Bay Express about a Tookie advocate trying to brainwash a High School class in Oakland. You can find it at www.eastbayexpress.com . The article is called Teachin Tookie. After the 29th of November, it should be archived there. Read it and vomit.

Saturday Morning

Warning. This entry has no useful information and is of no particular interest to anybody. It has no wit, no usefulness, no reason to read it. But is you wish to, by all means, waste your time.

I spend so much time looking at other people's blogs, that I rarely have the time or the inspiration to write anything of my own. My life seems to consist of reading, reading, and reading. Today however I must go to the bank, get two bucks out, buy fish bones,, poach them up and fix them for lunch. Also I greet at church tomorrow so I have to do some laundry. And then off to work. I worked on Veteran's Day so that's double time and a half. Ain't silly service wonderful?
I must also find another part time job to get through Christmas and pay two bills. Went to the Golden Gate Meat Company to get a heritage turkey. They have little bitty ones. It would be interesting to find out, this Thanksgiving, just what a real, naturally mating turkey tastes like. I think the breed is called American Bronze turkey. Have an invite (I think) to go to a workmate's home for Thankgiving. I'll feed their dog under the table as usual.
The strike has been settled at a local hospital so I may apply to their security department for a part time job. Fortunately, I left them on good terms when I got my present job. Also, I applied to Peet's coffee down at the Ferry Building. There is an Italian foods store in the Castro that I would love to apply to. But of course my dream is to find part time employment in a tobacco store. There aren't many of them here.
I had no idea that the internet is the place to look for work these days. Finally looked at Craigslist.com and found a wealth of opportunities. Never did that before. I always thought that it was a place to look for sex (groan) or to sell junk on. Not so.
The coffee is acting on my intestines like Drano on my sink. Nothing like cleaning out the pipes.
I warned you that this post is about nothing in particular, and there is nothing interesting or informative that I have to talk about this morning. It is simply a meandering bunch of nothing as opposed to a rant. Maybe a little later, I will rant. Not now however.

Arnold Gets Bitchslapped

The 300 million dollar election that Californians have had to endure yesterday is now history. Every single proposition that our governor proposed has gone down in flames. The wedge issue, the issue that Arnold tried to use to galvanize his base, the parental notification act, lost by a spread of 5.2 percentage points statewide.
I logged onto the state website that updated the vote every ten minutes, and the results there were interesting. Included in the website was a map of California counties with two different colors for the counties, depending on how they voted on each of the propositions. Along the coast (which is where most Californians live) Arnold lost big time, in spite of the fact that our largest cities have a sucky turnout. San Francisco had a turnout of less than forty percent, yet the parental notification initiative lost by 79 percent of the voters who turned out. Los Angeles also had a low turnout (41 percent) but also handily defeated the initiative. In fact, the only coastal counties that passed it were Orange County, San Diego County, and Imperial County. The only counties that voted no that were located elsewhere in the state were Alpine county and Nevada county, both on the Nevada border.
Every other initiative lost by larger margins. I hear that Warren Beatty is thinking of running for governor. Great. Two lousy actors, one a shill for the energy companies and the other a Hollywood moonbat. Is this the best we can do?
The other initiative that was even remotely close would have crippled the ability of public worker unions to raise funds to assist candidates without polling their members. As soon as corporations have to do the same with their stockholders before THEY give a candidate money, then I'll consider the issue. In the meantime, screw off Arnold. And yes, I am a public worker.
What makes the parental notification initiative so interesting, is that a majority of Californians have voted to allow minor females to get an abortion without notifying their parents. Egad. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else?
I don't recall being this glued to a website, updating it every ten minutes until 95 percent of the precincts had reported, ever. Am I becoming a political junkie? Finally, at 2:15 AM. I went to bed.