Quote Of The Day - Anita Bryant

"I was before her time, but Sally Kern is here for such a time as this. I am grateful for her life and her friendship. Reading The Stoning of Sally Kern was at times like déjà vu, reminding me of my stand in Dade County in 1977. I can highly recommend this book to anyone who loves God, their family, and their country. It is a must-read for any believing woman or man who wants to make a difference in these perilous times. Those soldiers who have counted the cost of character assassination or endured other losses yet are willing to take a stand in truth and love for the glory of God, our children, and future generations will especially enjoy this inspiring book." - Anita Bryant, from a blurb on the cover of fellow homophobe Sally Kern's autobiography.

Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of the publisher, today's Swag Tuesday prize is the new autobiography from punk pioneer turned openly gay nightlife kingpin, Bob Mould. See A Little Light: The Trail Of Rage And Melody is available nationwide now on multiple formats.

From the start, Mould wanted to make Hüsker Dü the greatest band in the world - faster and louder than the hardcore standard, but with melody and emotional depth. In SEE A LITTLE LIGHT, Mould finally tells the story of how the anger and passion of the early hardcore scene blended with his own formidable musicianship and irrepressible drive to produce some of the most important and influential music of the late 20th century. For the first time, Mould tells his dramatic story, opening up to describe life inside that furnace and beyond. Revealing the struggles with his own homosexuality, the complexities of his intimate relationships, as well as his own drug and alcohol addiction, Mould takes us on a whirlwind ride through achieving sobriety, his acclaimed solo career, creating the hit band Sugar, a surprising detour into the world of pro wrestling, and most of all, finally finding his place in the world. A classic story of individualism and persistence, Mould's autobiography is an open account of the rich history of one of the most revered figures of punk, whose driving force altered the shape of American music.

Enter to win a copy of See A Little Light by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of your entry. Entries close at midnight on Thursday, west coast time. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

RELATED: This Thursday, Bob Mould will appear at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan for special combined evening of readings from his book and performances from his lengthy catalog.

Hitchens On Mamet

Christopher Hitchens eviscerates the new book by recently revealed douchebag David Mamet.

This is an extraordinarily irritating book, written by one of those people who smugly believe that, having lost their faith, they must ipso facto have found their reason. In order to be persuaded by it, you would have to be open to propositions like this: “Part of the left’s savage animus against Sarah Palin is attributable to her status not as a woman, neither as a Conservative, but as a Worker.” Or this: “America is a Christian country. Its Constitution is the distillation of the wisdom and experience of Christian men, in a tradition whose codification is the Bible.” [Snip] Propagandistic writing of this kind can be even more boring than it is irritating.

Open Thread Thursday

What childhood book most influenced your tastes in reading today?

Liberals Are Mentally Ill

So says a new book being flogged by World Net Daily.

Just when liberal-leftists thought it was finally "their time" to lead center-right America, kicking and screaming, into a stifling socialist "utopia," a veteran psychiatrist is making a powerful case that the "hope-and-change" ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder. For more than 40 years, Rossiter has diagnosed and treated over 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases, both state and federal, as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist retained by numerous public offices, courts and private attorneys. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago. Rossiter explains with great clarity why the kind of liberalism being displayed by Barack Obama can only be understood as a psychological disorder. "Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded," says Rossiter. "Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave."

Crazy "Ex-Gay" Priest Reviews Books That Totally Cure You Of Your Homosexuality

Rev. Mario Bergner also says that Jeebus cured his AIDS: "At twenty-three I was hospitalized with eleven symptoms of AIDS. From my bed, I questioned the Lord about homosexuality and Christianity. Jesus appeared saying, 'I want to heal your whole person, not just your sexuality. Choose.' Not understanding what 'choose' meant I just chose him. I recovered and years later tested HIV negative."

UPDATE: Video has been pulled.

BOOK TRAILER: Gay In America

Palin Aide Pens "Scathing" Tell-All

BOOK TRAILER: Nina Here Or There

Nick Krieger's book about his transition, Nina Here Or There: My Journey Beyond Gender, launches today.

A Book For Exhausted Parents

A sample verse: "The cats nestle close to their kittens now. The lambs have laid down with the sheep. You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear. Please go the fuck to sleep."

Levi Johnston Readies Palin Tell-All

This fall Levi Johnston will release Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs, a tell-all book of his time with Mama Grizzly.

"I want to tell the truth about my close relationship with the Palins," Johnston, 20, says in a statement released by his publisher. "My sense of Sarah and my perplexing fall from grace – how I feel and what I've learned." Johnston adds: "I'm doing this for me, for my boy Tripp and for the country.

The timing of the book's release should prove amusing, as Palin may be officially launching her 2012 campaign by then.

Open Thread Thursday

What are you reading?

New Book: Germans Invented Gay Rights

According to a coming book by historian Robert Beachy, the genesis of the modern gay rights movement came in 19th century Germany.

Modern conceptions of homosexuality began, ironically, with an anti-sodomy law. When the German empire was unified in 1871, the Imperial Criminal Code included a law prohibiting sexual penetration of one man by another. Questions about what types of activity should fall under the law spurred a sustained public inquiry into the nature of same-sex eroticism and sexuality in general. [snip] This new view of same-sex love was pioneered by German doctors who published early case studies of homosexuals in the 1850s. German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing released the first edition of his hugely influential Psychopathia Sexualis in 1886, which included multiple case studies of homosexuals that supported this new position. Through his work, Krafft-Ebing became a vocal opponent of the German anti-sodomy law, stating that homosexuality "should not be viewed as a psychic depravity or even sickness."

Beachy claims the world's first gay rights group, the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Committee) came into being at that time to gather petition signatures to repeal the anti-sodomy law. His book, The German Invention Of Homosexuality, is due out next year.

Arch Homophobe Sally Kern Rides The Waambulance In New Book

Oklahoma state GOP Rep. Sally "Gays Are Worse Than Terrorists" Kern has self-published a book about her horrible treatment at the hands of those awful, awful homofascists. From the Amazon description of The Stoning Of Sally Kern:

In January 2008, the pastor’s wife and former high school teacher gave a speech to a Republican club in Oklahoma City explaining that the founding fathers believed Christian principles would lead to a civilized society, individual self-government, good citizens, the elevation of learning, and a cohesive value system. While explaining the fifth benefit, a cohesive value system, she told of a group of wealthy homosexual activists who threatened the nation’s moral fabric by attempting to unseat seventy conservative politicians who opposed their agenda. Clips from the speech later were posted on YouTube, generating more than 2 million hits and leading to what she describes as a media “stoning.” That didn’t stop her from winning re-election or from continuing her calls for America to return to the conservative principles that made it great. In this book she warns that there is danger ahead if social conservatives don’t preserve the nation’s foundations of morality, truth, and tolerance. She issues a cry for conservatives to stand for their freedom now before they no longer have the right to do so.

Kern's book has already been tagged with some fun labels. Add your own reviews.



(Via - Good As You)

It Gets Better - The Book

Pre-orders are now being taken.

UPDATE: Profits from sales of the book go to the Trevor Project, the Gay & Lesbian Straight Education Network, and the ACLU.

Ron Reagan Jr: Dad Was Showing Signs Of Alzheimer's While Still President

In his coming book, Ron Reagan Jr. says that his father was showing the early signs of Alzheimer's while still in office. Reagan Jr. says that he won't discuss the book until its release, but U.S. News & World Report today published several excerpts discussing the former president's state of mind while in office, closing with this paragraph from the book.

"I've seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medical condition while he was in office. Had the diagnosis been made in, say 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have. Far less was known about the disease then, of course, than is known now. Today we are aware that the physiological and neurological changes associated with Alzheimer's can be in evidence years, even decades, before identifiable symptoms arise. The question, then, of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's while in office more or less answers itself."

The Hipster Huckleberry Finn

"Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other hipsters. Hipsters would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any hipster in that country. Strange hipsters would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Hipsters is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, 'Hm! What you know 'bout witches?' and that hipster was corked up and had to take a back seat." - An excerpt from The Hipster Huckleberry Finn, which substitutes "hipster" wherever the n-word appears in the original.

(Via - Gothamist)

Censoring Mark Twain

In an effort to get school kids to read Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, a new version edited by a Twain scholar will excise the novel's 219 usages of the n-word. Finn is rarely taught in public schools anymore due to discomfort with the word, even though most agree its use is meant as an attack on slavery.

Twain himself defined a "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read." Rather than see Twain's most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave." "This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind," said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."

Quote Of The Day II - Father Cutie

"There are so many homosexuals, both active and celibate, at all levels of clergy and Church hierarchy that the church would never be able to function if they were really to exclude all of them from ministry." - Father Alberto Cutie (his real name), in his new book which slams the Catholic Church as misogynistic and hypocritical.

Cutie left the priesthood in 2009 after a Miami tabloid photographed him making out with the woman who eventually became his wife. Prior to being outed as a heterosexual, Cutie had been something a pop star in Latin media, earning him the nickname, "Father Oprah."

Lady Gaga's Meat Book

Copyranter notes that Lady Gaga's biography is being promoted in Australia's meat cases. OK, then.