Making themselves a Target

Business Dumbassery Award #1 - Target





I sure you guys have heard of the Target boycott, initiated by gay rights groups when Target donated $150,000 to a group that supports Tom Emmer, an anti gay governatorial candidate in Minnesota. The donation itself is appalling enough (though legal thanks to the recent Citizens United ruling), but its the lack of foresight by Target executives that really irks me. First, why contribute $150,000 to a political candidate anyways? $150,000 is a lot of money. Are you really going to get $150,000 in return from having your man in the Minnesota governor's mansion? Also, did it not occur to these guys that a large, highly public donation to an outspoken critic of gay marriage might upset gay people, who are probably big Target shoppers? They consist of about 5% of the population, and they ain't shopping at Wal Mart. Now left leaning groups are boycotting Target, big institutional investors are worried, and the donation may derail Target's attempts at moving into the San Francisco market, which they have been trying to do for years. Nice move, dumbasses.





Business Dumbassery Award #2 - Manchester Grand Hyatt

Target should have learned from a local San Diego douchebag, Doug Manchester. Manchester made millions building up the San Diego Bayfront into a beautiful area teeming with hotels. The crown jewel of his developement was the Manchester Grand Hyatt, the 3rd tallest building in San Diego and probably it's most awesome hotel. Manchester then pulled a target and decided to get political. During the Prop 8 campaign, he donated $125,000 to a group that supported Prop. 8. Boycotts and protests ensued. Manchester is a brilliant businessman, but what the hell was he thinking? Who did he think was staying in his urban, upscale waterfront hotel? Its not families who want to go to Sea World. Its people in town for business and upscale travelers (i.e. gay people). Even the name of the hotel is gay. Manchester Grand Hyatt? You might as well have called it "Doug's Fabulous Hotel". The hotel itself has mentioned that the boycott has cost the hotel about $2.4 million but some groups have the number even higher. Anyways, lesson as always, don't get involved in politics if you are trying to sell something.

Sharks!

I thought stingrays in La Jolla was bad, but apparently they are coming close to shore to avoid the 20 foot beasts that are crusing around La Jolla Cove these days. There have been three shark sightings in the past week in and around La Jolla Cove in the last week. Not the little ankle biters that are usually around, but full grown great whites. Normally they don't hang around San Diego, but they apparently they are showing up this year for some reason. Something to think about the next time you guys come in town and we kayak over to see the seals again. My solution, let that killer whale from Sea World who killed that trainer swim around and munch on sharks. They are the only animals in nature that have been known to kill great whites, and that one has a mean streak. They don't want to kill the whale, so let it take out it anger on some giant man eating fish, or at least scare them back to Northern California or LA. Problem solved.

This isn't about politics

A post not about politics. Wow!

I get asked for money about 20 times a day. Maybe it comes with being a pastor of an urban church. Maybe its just part of living in Baltimore. I don't know. Our church office gets called literally about 15 times a day by people requesting money for help with eviction notices or electric bills - just those two things. I've had two people in my office today affiliated with the church, ask for money (and residence in the church basement). I was parallel parking my car while talking on the phone yesterday. My a/c doesn't work in my car very well so i had the windows down. Even though I was in the middle of parking and in the middle of talking on the phone, some guy literally stuck his head in my windows asking for money. I get asked at almost every single street corner I walk down and even by my landlord (the nerve!).

It's this constant barrage of endless need. Many are looking for money for drugs. I know this and I'm starting to learn who they are. Many are not. How do you deal with this and remain faithful to a scripture that says "give to all who ask of you" and "why not rather be wronged? why not rather be cheated" while at the same time not enabling drug addicts and at the same time not becoming insane/cynical/broke? (and remember, it's not just a suggestion to be faithful to those scriptures, its actually part of my job description). how do you deal with it?

Traditional Family

Responding to Adam's post on traditional family

I think this whole thing is weird. There is no "traditional family" especially in regards to the bible (of which many seem to claim their tradition comes from). I've read the bible more than most and a lot less than I should have, but you can't read scripture seriously and walk away thinking that what social conservatives call a "traditional family" is anything like what is presented in the bible.

The bible sees marriage as an economic exchange between families - namely between the husband and the father. The husband gains from this exchange. He gets a wife who provides him with children (and sex). Children aren't just good because they're cute and fun and fulfilling, but they're good because they are your health insurance. Honor your mother and father literally means to take care of your parents when they're old and can't work anymore. That's why losing children is so horrible in the bible - it also means your own death. But the father gains too. He gets a dowry. The wife also gains.

Women at the time were dependent on men to take care of them physically and economically (likewise men were dependent on women economically too, but that's a different matter). Women literally had to stay pregnant all the time because so many children died during childhood that they needed to have as many as possible. They couldn't do all the same types of physical labor that men did even though their physical labor can only be accurately described as backbreaking as well - making bread took hours and hours of grinding and smashing - all of us, even you steven, are too much of wimps to do what everyday women did back then.

This is what marriage has always been throughout human history - an economic exchange between different parties. This isn't to say that there wasn't joy, love and happiness in these marriages, only that marriage wasn't for the purpose of romantic love. Also during times when many men died due to war, disease or genocide or whatever, polygamous relationships became normal because there were too many single women. Men took on many wives as a means to take care of them and to have more children. This too is very traditional, just not by Sarah Palin's standards.

There were no traditional male/male or female/female relationships because marriage wasn't about romantic love. Protests in scripture about male/male or female/female "relationships" were always about same-sex sexual practices that were almost always abusive either through rape, war, humiliation, slavery or involving children. They aren't "traditional relationships" because same-sex marriage doesn't make sense economically until children become economic costs as opposed to economic assets - like what happened in affluent urban societies after the industrial revolution.

so yeah. that was long.

Politics Thought Dump

Obama Dumps Biden in 2012 and Picks Hillary for VP

Personally, I think it's a fantastic idea and a good way to setup Hillary for a presidential run in 2016. I'm over Biden. Then again, I was never really for him anyway.

Christiane Amanpour: Liberal. Biased. Terrorist.

I'm a huge fan of Sunday morning talk shows. Meet the Press, This Week, Fox News Sundays. One of the best parts of the Sunday morning roundup of news has always been This Week's "In Memoriam." It's haunting and humbling to see the names and ages of the men and women who have died in the service of their country. The network respectfully only displays the names of soldiers that have been officially released by the Pentagon, I assume to allow families to be notified and mourn. In what I believe was just an attempt to put her own rhetorical twist on the segment, the new host, Christiane Amanpour stated, "We remember all of those who died in war this week, and the Pentagon released the names of 11 U.S. servicemembers killed in Afghanistan."

Taking a page from Palin's playbook, the neoconservative base has gone into a craze. The above statement was ooooobviously a biased, liberal verbal manipulation to convince the American public to mourn those that died on the other side of the battlefield. But really, is mourning any loss of life a bad thing? Isn't all human life sacred? Where the hell are the Christianists when you need them? Wait, these are them.

A Long History and Tradition.

I probably should write a longer post on this. And probably will. But just a thought. Social conservatives always argue against gay equality (marriage, adoption, job discrimination, housing discrimination, etc) on the basis that the "traditional family" has a long history and tradition - that generations and generations, cultures upon cultures, religion through religion. But could it be that through all of human history, we have just killed gays? Maybe it's that only in the last 50-100 years, a few select societies have evolved to the point where we just don't murder those that dare to be different. Do we really want to rely on that rich history of tradition as a model of virtue?