Happy Friday – Here are some of the topics that caught my eye this week:
- Drag Queen Story Hour
- The Insurrection
- Amanda Gorman
- Memorial Day
DRAG QUEEN STORY HOUR:
The MAGA crowd in Great Falls is continuing to attack the Great Falls Public Library in hopes they can get voters to vote against the proposed levy to help the library. Over on the “NextDoor” App, some angry discussions are going on between the “For the Levy” crowd and the “Against the Levy” crowd. There’s also some misinformation being spread.
I am voting FOR THE LEVY. I hope you will join me.
If you need information about the levy, don’t rely on the MAGA crowd or the mean effers on Facebook, MAGA blogs, and the NextDoor App. Go HERE.
The E-City Beat blog recently posted a column titled, “Does GF Public Library Plan ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ For ‘Pride Month’ This June?” They ask a slanted poll question, “Does the Great Falls Public Library intend to sponsor another ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ for kids on their ‘Kids Place’ YouTube video channel next month, as they did in 2021?”
You know, I didn’t really care that much about the Drag Queen story hour, until it was attacked. There have been drag queen performances throughout history, but the “Karens” in Montana, who are mostly MAGA people, decided this was the latest hill they wanted to try and conquer. They were able to pass a bill that “…bans drag performances on publicly owned property; it prohibits drag story hour events – where drag performers read story books to children – from libraries and schools…” (Source)
The bill has been signed into law and has an immediate effective date. For those at E-City Beat, that means NOW.
The post from E-City Beat was just a ploy to keep the hatred for drag queen shows front and center for the narrow-minded people who have a short attention span.
Vote for the Great Falls Library Levy – to help make the library a better facility – and to piss off the “Karens” and MAGA people.
THE INSURRECTION:
If you have followed this blog very much then you know that I don’t think the sentences being handed down by the federal judges to the people who participated in the January 6 insurrection are strong enough.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that Oath Keepers extremist group founder Stewart Rhodes was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison for orchestrating a weekslong plot that culminated in his followers attacking the U.S. Capitol in a bid to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House after winning the 2020 election.
The 18-year sentence is close to what I would have sentenced if I were the judge. I think a minimum of 25 years would be the starting point for anyone who went inside the Capitol that day. The maximum, IMHO, should be life in prison or the death penalty. People died. Those who were there to protect the Capitol suffered life-altering injuries. I think these weak sentences are not much of a deterrent. It will be a badge of honor for those convicted.
The 18 years will give Rhodes a few years to recruit other inmates for the Oath Keepers. Already Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have indicated if they are elected President, they will pardon some of the people convicted in the January 6 insurrection. (Source)
AMANDA GORMAN:
Readers may remember that Amanda Gorman was the poet who read her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021.
I follow Gorman on Twitter and recently I saw the following tweet from her:
So they ban my book from young readers, confuse me with @oprah, fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives…Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back
The ban was at a school in Florida, where the Associated Press (AP) reports that while book bans are not new, they are happening much more frequently, especially in Florida — where Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed policies that allow the censorship of books some have deemed inappropriate for children in schools, causing national uproar.
We really need to stop this book-banning nonsense. The parent(s) or guardian should have the ultimate say about what books their children read – not the parent of another child or the government.
You can read the AP report about the ban HERE.
MEMORIAL DAY:
Monday is Memorial Day. It is a day to honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice while serving our country. Please join me in doing just that.
All across this great nation, there will be families and friends who will be thinking about a loved one who died while serving our country. I served almost a dozen years in the Air Force, and I will be remembering some colleagues who lost their lives while serving.
God bless America.
The Western Word 
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10210407198691568&set=a.1313587615047&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZXXJqqsVzOh9kJLmC-2ZG141Mq1fuEuU1pcBdrH2ZmsRtXOA3ZUFHqwppHgJqerrqFU3_JmRJJq0bhyJngjQSX93A3cGrchPJQpXM03ybTscQtHcjIlVZSXxh3XZOloU4HM5Y7GsSTWE5pbYW72tOg04mwyeyKt7Fbfij3lQIQGRw&__tn__=EH-R
The similarities between our MAGA book banners/burners of today and their ideological ancestors in Nazi Germany are not to be denied. Their reasons for banning books and those of today’s MAGAs are identical. And with hate crimes becoming more frequent in Montana against the LBGTQ and trans communities, it’s vital that we understand as much as we can about the origins of the hatred and where it eventually leads.
I find it fascinating that the earliest studies of homosexuality and different sexual variants were done in Germany by a Jewish doctor, Magnus Herschfield. All the books in his institute were among the first books burned, thereby wiping out all his research. Interesting to note that he reached the same conclusions that we are just discovering today. And that is that no matter how much the MAGAs whine, sexuality is NOT to be defined as simply male and female, but exists on a continuum. Therefore, our MAGAs make the entire state look like a bunch of buffoons by passing their ridiculous laws that go against science and nature. History will not be kind to the recently concluded session. What’s next? Will Daniel Emrich jump off a tall building to prove that gravity is just a theory?
“ The future doesn’t always guarantee progress, even as time moves forward, and the story of the Institute for Sexual Research sounds a warning for our present moment. Current legislation and indeed calls even to separate trans children from supportive parents bear a striking resemblance to those terrible campaigns against so-labeled aberrant lives.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/
One woman filed the one (1) complaint against the Gorman poem that got it banned.
She sounds like a real winner. This is the kind of person dictating our public policies now. There in Florida, and I would not be surprised if here in Great Falls too, exemplified by that “values” logo with the disrespected and ripped away U.S. flag replaced by the KKK cross about to be burned.
https://www.jta.org/2023/05/24/united-states/the-florida-mom-who-got-amanda-gormans-poem-restricted-says-shes-sorry-for-promoting-the-protocols-of-the-elders-of-zion
With all the complaints floating around, it would be neat if some great Montanan would file a complaint against a certain city commissioner for not listing a Paid For disclaimer on his campaign ads. -JmB
All that right wing library angst over one drag story video from the pandemic in 2021 that no one cared about when it was fresh.
The Atlantic recently had a (subscribers only) story about what a toxic source of misinformation Nextdoor has become, and the Great Falls library haters (actual residents as well as the phonies) have been proving that in spades.
I especially enjoy clowns who claim our taxes would go up 750% due to the library levy. Hate to say it, but adding $40 on top of an existing annual $2200 bill does not equate to 750%. Let’s just call it 1.8% instead. Those clowns come off looking like they might have benefitted from some extra time in the library as a kid, in the Math stacks.
Of course when discussing the size of the new mills vs the old mills there’s never any mention of the annual $350,000 a successful levy would turn back to the City general fund for public safety and whatnot, which would of course considerably reduce the real budget increase the library would see.
And what they don’t admit is that in advocating for a defeat of the library levy these haters would intentionally deprive our city cops of that give back $350,000 annually, just to act out their hate for one old video. Don’t they care about public safety? They obviously must really hate our police, too. Can we expect them to go this all out against tax increases when the public safety levy gets near? Now THAT’s real money.
Right on point.
The clown posting about 750% tax increase is a complete dumbass. You’re right that he should visit the library’s math section. Luckily some are calling him out on his lie.
Thanks, JmB