Saturday, April 16, 2011

Do you really need any more reason not to vote for Republicans in the next election?

This absolutely sickens me. Racist, homophobic bigots. Anyone who is not white, anglo-saxon and protestant (and don't lets forget how they stand on women) are sub-human and gays and lesbians are degenerate psychopaths. Disgraceful!

From the Orange County Weekly (with my commentary:

Racist Orange County Republican Email: Obama and his parents are Apes. 

Orange County might be a beautiful oceanfront locale, but it's also home to Holocaust deniers, vicious anti-gay bigots and freakish big-haired televangelists.

Here, one of our Republican politicians welcomed the inauguration of the first African American U.S. president in early 2009 by sending out an email that depicted a watermelon field in front of the White House.

That incident drew embarrassing international attention, but now another Orange County Republican has apparently topped the watermelon imagery with another racist attack on President Barack Obama.


The Weekly has obtained a copy of an email sent to fellow conservatives this week by Marilyn Davenport, a Southern California Tea Party activist and member of the central committee of the Orange County Republican Party.


Under the words, "Now you know why no birth certificate," there's an Obama family portrait showing them as apes.


(Donald Trump must be elated to finally have an explanation about Obama's true birth circumstances.)



Here's the image attached to the email:


President_Obama_Monkeys.jpg
The image attached to an email distributed among Orange County Republicans and Tea Baggers.
Reached by telephone and asked if she thought the email was appropriate, Davenport said, "Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black. Besides, I only sent it to a few people--mostly people I didn't think would be upset by it."


The image did upset several local Republicans.

"It's unbelievable," one high-ranking OC GOP official told me. "It's much more racist than the watermelon email. I can't believe it was sent out. I'm not an Obama fan but how stupid do you have to be to do this?"

Another GOP official, who also asked not to be identified, said that Davenport is "a really, really sweet old lady (for a filthy bigot) so I am surprised to hear about this."

Scott Baugh, chairman of the OC Republican Party, told Davenport that the email was tasteless, Davenport--a Fullerton-based political activist--admitted to me during the telephone interview.

"You're not going to make a big deal about this are you?" she asked me. "It's just an Internet joke."

But Baugh believes the email is a big deal.

"When I saw that email today I thought it was despicable," Baugh said. "It is dripping with racism and it does not promote the type of message Orange County Republicans want to deliver to the public. I think she should consider stepping down as an elected official."

Michael J. Schroeder, an Orange County resident and former chairman of the California Republican Party, also said he was disgusted.

"This is a three strikes situation for Marilyn Davenport," Schroeder said. "She was a passionate defender of former Newport Beach city councilman Dick Nichols who stated that he was voting against putting in more grass at Corona del Mar's beach because, he said, there were already 'too many Mexicans on the beach.' She was also on the wrong side of the fence with the Los Alamitos mayor and his White House watermelon patch picture. Now, she has managed to top both of those incidents by comparing African Americans to monkeys. She has disgraced herself and needs to resign. If she doesn't, the Republican Party must remove her." (Let's see if they do.)

But Davenport does not appear ready to concede she has made a mistake. After this story was published, she sent another email to fellow California conservative activists. It demanded to know the identity of "the coward" who supplied me with a copy of her offensive email.

Several Los Angeles television news broadcasts are planning coverage of this story tonight.

(Update: KCAL and KCBS reported during their respective 10 and 11 p.m. broadcasts that in a telephone interview Davenport blamed the media for this controversy and slammed down the phone.) (This is standard operating procedure for the Republicans; when caught being despicable blame the messenger.)

In February 2009, Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose, another Orange County Republican, emailed the White House watermelon image and then apologized.


obama_watermelons.jpg
OC Republican mayor's racist greeting in 2009 to newly elected President Obama

Ironically, Obama reversed decades and decades of tradition by not getting trounced at the presidential election polls in Orange County, long known as Ronald "Reagan Country." In fact, he won an impressive 48 percent of the vote in 2008. The last Democrat to win a decent showing here: Franklin D. Roosevelt.


Orange County is also home to Orly Taitz, the Soviet Union-born dentist who lives in Laguna Niguel and is one of the world's leading proponents of claims that Obama is killing homosexuals tied to his old Chicago church, was born in Kenya, is personally funding Hamas terrorists and ordered a secret agent to break into her vehicle.

Alas, if you really want to be disturbed, read THIS RECENT RELATED STORY by my colleague Gustavo Arellano.


Just two percent of Orange County's 3 million population is African American.

--R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
(rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com)


Sunday, April 10, 2011

Very sad news

Miss Ellie during last year's Carnival. RIP honey.
Those of you who have visited Provincetown may have had the pleasure of seeing Ellie Castillo perform in front of town hall over the years. I was really very sorry to hear that Ellie died on Thursday of pancreatic cancer. We all so much enjoyed the very sweet person she was. I took this photo last year during Carnival. We were walking down the street after having a nice dinner at Ross' Grill and Miss Ellie was "holding forth" on a nearby corner. Even with us wrapped up in our convivial nonsense, we were captivated by Miss Ellie's performance. We stopped while she finished one tune and then she did another. At the end of the second song (during which you could have heard a pin drop) the crowd erupted in the warmest ovation for her. It truly was a lovely moment. 

Her memorial is set for May 14th at the Unitarian-Universalist Meeting House in Provincetown at 11AM. We plan to be there.

Ellie was Provincetown. Her spirit - one of reinvention, fun, glamour, joie de vivre - came through as she sang up and down Commercial Street year-round for the past decade, making her not only a town favorite, but also an instant icon. Ellie arrive in Provincetown at the age of 70 as Elliot. As her placard read, she came here, like so many others, to live her dream.  A former minister, Ellie's own ministry of peace and love reached thousands. Never without a smile, Ellie loved Provincetown, and Provincetown loved Ellie – so much so that when Town Hall re-opened, Ellie sang one of her standards, Frank Sinatra's "Its Impossible", to an adoring crowd. Ellie will be remembered always for her kindness and commitment to this community. We'll all miss her.