Saturday, November 15, 2008

Who’s Afraid Of Anita Bryant?

Anita Bryant is going to star in a new movie about an old rival, San Francisco gay politician Harvey Milk, whether she wants to or not. I have no doubt this movie, Milk, by Gus Van Sant starring Sean Penn, will be huge success. It includes footage from her public appearances against the gay community. But instead of celebrating the homophobic crusades she won in the 70’s, this film is celebrating a decisive moment in the progress of gay rights. Ultimate defeat as a bigot will be her legacy to mankind. What a bitter pill for a God-fearing woman.

Is Anita Bryant the demon the gay community makes her out to be? I don’t think so. I think she is a good person, a talented person. Misguided, but not evil. Her life shows what happens when you suspend individual rights in the name of fundamentalist dogma, when you apply faith to public ethics instead of reason.

What happened to the Anita Bryant of the days of Lawrence Welk and the Lennon Sisters, to the sweetheart singer who placed 11 songs in the Top 100 in the early 60’s? I believe it is the same thing that happened to many American values of that time. She mixed faith with reason on equal footing and learned the consequences of fighting to impede individual rights. Essentially, she became discredited and cast aside.

The first inkling of this came about because of orange juice of all things. She used to be the spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission. Who can ever forget her charming famous catchphrase from the 70’s: "Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine"?

Then in 1977, Dade County, Florida (now Miami-Dade County) passed an ordinance that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Anita Bryant led the now-famous Christian movement called "Save Our Children" to repeal it. She won and it was a black mark on the history of USA government. (It was reinstated in 1998.)

One of the tenets of that movement was that homosexuality is a sin. Call it what you want, but a right to exist in any form, so long as you do not harm another, is not a sin. At least not in public ethics. It is an individual right expressed by the doctrine of equality of all individuals under the law.

As to children, there is no scientific evidence that contact with homosexual adults harms children. None. That is a faith-based doctrine and it flies in the face of reason. Thus, it cannot be grounds for law. But under faith it works. The problem is, “Whose faith?” A Christian's faith? A homosexual's faith? When faiths collide, which faith is legal and which is illegal?

In the American system set up by our Founding Fathers there is room for all faiths, but only room for one logic. That is why equality of individual rights constantly grows and cannot be stopped. The logic of privileged rights always fails over time.

In retaliation, the gay community organized a nationwide boycott against orange juice. They started drinking "Anita Bryants" (vodka and apple juice) instead of screwdrivers. Bryant learned another harsh lesson that America constantly learns and forgets: that money speaks louder to business than ideals. With industry sales hurting, her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission was quietly declined when it came up for renewal.

Her life has been a descending skid ever since that peak, with a few upswings, mostly homophobic ones, before continuing on her downward path. She had the world in the palm of her hand and she threw it all away on the false promise of dogma. This woman was not trying to be evil. She thought she was fighting for the good. She simply used faith in the wrong manner.

A society based on individual rights means that if you want to practice faith when it conflicts with reason, practice it on your own life. Nothing but reason can ever give you the moral right to enforce your ideas on others. For people like Anita Bryant who wish to impose their ideas on others, there are plenty of reason-based ideas to choose from, say, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as starters.

Nothing sums up what any dogma-based attempt to violate the rights of others deserves as well as a pie in the face, as one Aron Kay performed in the late 70’s.



Even in light of the current gay marriage controversy raging across the nation, nothing helps move an issue forward like the success of individuals. Like Harvey Milk’s success. And like the upcoming success of the movie about him. I can't wait to see it.

As for Anita Bryant, who's afraid of her anymore?

New direction - but still Internet marketing

Today I have decided to take this blog into a new direction. It will be comments on current affairs.

This is a pretty good idea, actually. I have moved into the IM field and I need agility in researching a wide variety of hot topics, getting them up and producing original writing for them. So this blog is going to be like playing scales for learning the piano.

Off and running...

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Review of Chris Freville's Automated List Builder

Below is how to get to my Squidoo review page of the product above. Here is the link and first paragraph:

Review of Chris Freville's Automated List Builder

(Start of review) Automated List Builder? Me? The thing I most hate about email lists is setting them up. I admit it. Auto-responder installation and administration is dull. It's boring. It wasn't so long ago that I didn't even know what an auto-responder was and I'm almost sorry I learned. But here I am fiddling around with a list building product. Why?

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Roboform, what a relief!

I made a post earlier about using KeePass. That's OK for some limited work, but for working on the Internet, I have finally discovered that there is nothing like Roboform. I am not even plugging it as an affiliate yet.

I have no idea how I managed to live without this tool. The sign-in process to different sites is now as easy to me as using the "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" feature on the browser. Since I am going to be using a large number of sites in my new business, especially Web 2.0 sites (which are endless), this tool is an indispinsible resource, sort of like a truck for a delivery service.

I don't know how the minds of others work, but mine is very stubborn. If I have to wait too long or do a bunch of busywork to access a site, I end up forgetting why I am going there. I get distracted easily. Well, that is now easier to discipline.

I think anyone stumbling across my little corner of the virtual universe will now see a large increase in posts and information. Let's say now I am free to concentrate on content and not on process.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Time to get rolling

I run a website forum (Objectivist Living) and a few Internet marketing ventures in addition to this blog. I have tried to put all the amazing stuff I am learning about Internet resources on OL, but that is a philosophy forum.

All this stuff I am learning, especially Web 2.0, has been fascinating me. So the focus of this blog will be general resources: sites, techniques, tutorials, etc. I will probably cross post some of this will OL.

I also plan to offer a product or two while I am at it. However, I intend only to offer products on this blog that I use or would use if I worked at that field. This does not mean that the other products I sell elsewhere are inferior. It merely means that I personally use the ones here. I think this gives the blog a nice personal touch.

Stick around folks. I think this is going to be one hell of a ride.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Information overload

Here are two practical tips for delving into the world of Web 2.0 without making a holy mess of things. The main problem is how to stay organized and not be flooded out of your normal life at the same time. There are so many programs out there that it is hard to keep up with them. There is just too much stuff all of a sudden.

I read on a blog somewhere that if you keep your head in the sand like an ostrich with these new programs and resources, you will be passed by. Technology is advancing so rapidly that you cannot ignore progress without losing touch. Yet if you try to stay on top of everything, you will not have time for anything else—and, anyway, you will not succeed in learning all there is to know.

So the suggestion was to adopt a squirrel attitude. This means hoarding your nuts for the time you want them or need them. I like that suggestion very much.

If you use the squirrel approach, anytime you see an interesting program or resource, you can spend a little time with it to check it out. If you like it or think it is important, you can go ahead set it up. But in order to acquire skill using it, you need to learn and repeat the basic operations, with emphasis on repetition. Learning a Web 2.0 program can be easy enough, but it is even easier to forget what you did after a few days away from it.

Added to this, what do you do when you have to do all that about 50 times or so and new things just don't stop coming? Here is what I have decided to do for my own survival.

Tip No. 1 - Email

Most all of the programs you sign up for will require email confirmation. This can cause a major headache because there are so many programs out there. If you are used to using your email for normal things like communicating with people you like, etc., you might find that your email life has suddenly gotten entangled with a flood of new information and advertisements. This can cause you to neglect someone or something you need to attend to and prompt a feeling of hopelessness from being overwhelmed.

The best thing you can do about this is sign up for a Gmail account (or some other free email account) and use it for the specific purpose of signing up for new programs and resources. Make a dedicated email account just for this. If you ever start using a new Web 2.0 program in earnest and want to change the email to one you use for more important matters, you can almost always do so in the account settings. This way you are able to sign up for the latest trends and resources, but you can keep the garbage separate from your normal life.

Tip No. 2 - Password

This is something I recently organized properly. It was a huge headache, but well worth it. If I had started out doing what I am going to suggest, I would have saved myself hours upon hours over months of frustration and distraction.

I have been keeping all my passwords in a handwritten notebook. I was afraid to keep them on my hard drive, say in a Word or Excel file. When you surf and try out new things a lot, you are at periodic risk of invasion. It won't do to have all your passwords handy in one place that is easy to read.

I was categorizing my passwords in my notebook according to subject. But part of the problem was writing out all those URLs and other information. My handwriting is not the easiest to understand, even for me! Finally the number of programs and sites grew so big that I needed some kind of sorting control, but they were on written pages and could not be moved around.

I looked around at several options on the Internet and decided to get a password management program. I settled on a freeware program called Keepass (KeePass Password Safe). It is fairly easy to learn, but it was a pain entering all that information from my notebook. However, with every entry I made, I felt an increasing sense of relief. Whew! Order has come to my house.

Keepass allows me to sort programs/passwords like files in a normal tree structure. I can also launch programs, so Keepass serves as a bookmarking resource, but with the added advantage of having password, username, etc. handy. I already use the Firefox feature of "remembering" URL, username and password, but on Firefox, this is a hidden automatic operation. I prefer to have the information at hand so I can see it. Otherwise, I forget too much.

I can use Keepass for the passwords and activation codes of normal programs on my computer's hard disk, not just sites on the Internet. It even generates random passwords so I don't have to make them up when I need to register at a new site. Also, there is a helpful feature that allows me to keep extra notes on each entry. This is a blessing in some cases where there are special routines or other things I need to remember.

Keepass is well-encrypted so I can see my passwords when I want to, but nobody else can unless they are looking right at my screen. Even then, I have to click on an option to show a password instead of the line of dots normally displayed, and I have to do this each time I want to show the password. I am not allowed to become careless.

Keepass allows you to print out the entire batch, notes and all. This is an extremely important backup measure since a hard drive is always subject to failure.

Also, I keep a backup of the Keepass file on a thumb drive. Only Keepass can open it, and then, the person has to have the proper password. So you could even Zip it to change the name and send it to yourself as an attachment if you have an online email like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail and keep a copy "out there." The Keepass password is the only real password you will ever have to memorize. If you forget that one, though, you are cooked without a printout.

There are other password management programs out there. Some are free and many cost money. For my own needs, I don't need many bells and whistles—just basic organization, good encryption and easy editing—so Keepass suits me fine. You might have other needs or preferences. For instance, you might want a program that automatically fills out user information like address, telephone, favorite books and music and foods and so forth. I personally don't like this information automated, but that is my taste. A simple Google search for "password manager" will uncover oodles of options.

The important thing is to organize the mountain of passwords you need to keep up with Web 2.0. A password manager allows you to squirrel away programs and sites and haul them out when you have time to look at them in more depth. And it gives you an additional easy manner of opening the programs you normally use.

For those of you who have not thought much about these problems but sense information overload encroaching on your life, I hope these two tips were worth something. I had to learn them the hard way. Now, you don't have to.