America's Iraq is Torturing and Killing Gays

Good Morning Papamoka Bloggers! I don't have anything polite to add to a story I read this morning on The Raw Story about how gays are being tortured and killed in Iraq by both religious terrorists and the government. It even describes how the torturers are coming up with new, creative ways to kill their poor victims.

I feel horrible for those poor people. Most important, as an American, it makes me extremely angry that we are over there risking our soldier's lives, spending billions each month to protect those horrible people, and standing by and doing NOTHING!

The reports suggest there's a witch hunt in progress, with gays being rounded-up, tortured and killed. Reports say that some are killed by having their anuses glued shut, causing a painful, grotesque death. I don't know what to say about that, except that my heart breaks to think we freed those horrible people allowing them to do their nightmarish deeds.

More Americans should know about this nightmare, because we are partly responsible. Please join me and tell our representatives how angry we are that innocent people are being persecuted by a regime we protect and support. We need to stop them or GET THE HELL OUT! Think about it, if we do nothing, than we are no better. We're simply the guards protecting the lynch mobs murdering innocent people. It's wrong! We shouldn't allow it to happen!

It appears our young men and women died to replace a brutal, inhumane regime with brutal, inhumane, intolerant people. They seem the same to me. It all seems like such a waste of lives, money and effort.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

PS - If you decide to take action, here are a few links that may help you. Email President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and/or your national elected officials. If you wish to call, simply call the Whitehouse at 202-456-1414, or the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. I also suggest you contact your local newspaper. Please let them all know how angry we are to see our leaders and military standing idly by while lynch mobs persecute and murder innocent gay people in Iraq.

Amazon is Too Large, Too Important to Discriminate

Hello Papamoka Readers! It boggles the mind, but for some reason Amazon.com decided to discriminate against gays over the weekend. How? It's subtle, but it's still discriminatory. They decided to "de-rank" hundreds of book titles with gay subject matter on the grounds that they were too "adult." It appears they may be ready to reverse the new policy, but it's still unclear this morning what will happen.

It seems they just decided to equate MILLIONS OF AMERICANS with pornography. Why should stories/books featuring average Americans, who happen to be gays and lesbians, be considered "adult" material? Adult material is adult material! It's different for God's sake.

The Los Angeles Times found that great books like Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, and Becoming a Man by Paul Monette, have been categorized as "adult" material and struck from their rankings. Interestingly, books with the same types of stories, yet written from heterosexual perspectives, didn't get bumped from the rankings.

They need to reverse the policy, and soon. It's closed-minded and discriminatory. It's bad enough that gays and lesbians are treated like second class citizens when it comes to politics and marriage, but to be called pornographic? Amazon may be a private company, but discrimination is still wrong. They need to remain neutral, or we need to find an alternative.

Besides, good literature is never really pornographic. It's challenging, thought-provoking, and difficult. Amazon should know the difference. There is a clear difference between good literature and smut. In the end, love and emotion are not "adult" themes, but human themes. The sooner the idiots of Amazon.com get that message the better.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

PS - Amazon is trying to claim that it was a computer "glitch," but there is a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise. For example, there were statements from company executives defending the changes over the weekend. Until we know the truth, please let Amazon know how you feel by clicking here.