What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Tuesday, August 26, 2008

   FIRST LADY

Michelle Obama speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Denver earlier tonight:

Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.

All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be. That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack’s journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope. That is why I love this country.

Okay, pardon my French but that speech was FUCKING AWESOME. This woman has taken a lot of undeserved flack this year and come back with grace and, dare I say it, hope.

Labels: America, politics, repair, tributes

Facebook is passé, Luke: The Emperor has foreseen it! Return to the blogosphere. IT IS YOUR DESTINY!!!

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at January 04, 2009

 

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Normally, I'm in awe of San Francisco Gate columnist Mark Morford, who twice-weekly dispenses his unique blend of fiery sarcasm and Yoga wisdom, but this man who steadily and sharply rails against the worst excesses of American culture has gone too far this time -- he's picking on Wendy's:

The burger is this: two sickeningly brownish-gray, chemical-blasted 1/4-pound beeflike patties, intersliced with two slabs of neon-orange cheeselike substance, slathered with mayonnaise, all topped with the big kicker: six (yes, six) strips of bacon. Oh my, yes. It's like a giant middle finger to your heart.

This product's name? The "Baconator." You know, like "Terminator," only for, uh, a huge stack of cow/pig meat that celebrates your impending coronary/impotence/cancer with every bite. Genius.

Morford is stunned at the way "this insidious concoction is simply startling in its shameless toxicity" and wonders how people could possibly be stupid enough to eat such garbage.

Let me just wash down this last bite with some Coke and I'll answer that question. It's not stupidity that fools people into eating the Baconator, it's courage. It's the stubborn willfulness of saying, "Hey, I know exactly what a terrible idea this is but I'm gonna go for it anyway!" It's why people smoke or skydive or drive too fast or listen to Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell II. It's the thrill of knowing you did it and SURVIVED.

Once you've eaten a Baconator, you will actually feel the sensation of your intestines shutting down for two hours but you will also feel the blood rushing through your veins. You'll feel ALIVE.

Labels: America, health, insanity

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at November 12, 2007

 

I love the last sentence: You'll feel ALIVE... lol

It's absolutely true that many people are desperately trying to do something extraordinary or revolutionary so they can feel alive, or even prove their very existence in history.

Other than that, it's still just temptation to cross the line, to challenge oneself, to stimulate the senses and to feel satisfied. It's just human nature.

I'll stay away from the scary Baconator but I won't even bother trying to stop people from feasting on it.

Wingo

-- Reply posted by  Anonymous at November 17, 2007

 

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This evening, I discovered my New Favourite Thing Ever!
"You say that every week," says one friend of mine.
He's right.
Fine -- it's This Week's New Favourite Thing Ever:

The Midwest Teen Sex Show

Oh get your minds out of the gutter -- it's a PG-rated video podcast put together by Illinois' own Garth (the director), Britney ("just a smalltown girl, livin' in a lonely"...hey wait, that's Journey) and Nikol, "former expert practitioner of teen promiscuity, [now] a Midwestern mother of three"). They're trying to raise the bar on getting sensible sexual health information to teens while lowering the bar on tasteful sketch comedy. Pure gold!

MY sex education in high school merely consisted of a small, mustached little man hesitantly pointing a stick at an illustrated cutaway of the human torso on an overhead projector while mumbling, then a cheery black woman from the Board of Health who rolled a condom over a banana. That's about it. Thanks to that, I'm in my thirties and still think that doing it up the butt means I'm a virgin.

Yeah, okay, these midwest kids are funnier.
And they're hitting all the right topics, including:
Abstinence
The Older Boyfriend (creepy but necessary)
Birth Control
The First Time
and my obvious personal favourite:
Homosexuality in High School

Labels: America, evolution, health, homo-a-go-go, silliness

You know, if the stakes weren't so high, this would be the funniest thing ever:

Like Hansel and Gretel hoping to follow their bread crumbs out of the forest, the FBI sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006, hoping that sales records of Middle Eastern food would lead to Iranian terrorists.

The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.

Unfortunately, knowing that these are people supposedly protecting us from Islamic evil is just pathetic and sad.

Labels: America, insanity, Orwell says hi, politics, war - what is it good for?

Far be it from me to weigh in on a debate that I know extremely little about (oh who am I kidding? It's never stopped me before) but I think it's time to settle a 72-year-old Middle Eastern debate: is it Iran or Persia?

That's an internal debate, of course -- ultimately, the good people of Iran will call themselves and their country whatever they want -- but it's a timely one because the US government is so very afraid of Iran right now. Despite abandoning the noble efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and despite the (is there a bigger word than catastrophe? debacle? fiasco?) in Iraq, Bush and Cheney are still beating those wardrums, scaring us with tales of WWIII and "the new Hitler" (the last one was Saddam Hussain, for those keeping track at home). It feels like this is all going to end badly.

So, I think one small way for Iranians to slow this train (assuming they can't easily replace their own scary President) would be to change the name of the country back to Persia. Iran sounds too much like Iraq for some people (I once heard someone say, "What's the difference?" Oh, it's a big one) and Persia as a concept still gets a lot of play in Western culture.

While 'Iranian' brings up notions of war and revolution and executions, 'Persian' makes us think of carpets and tea and kittens. Why, it could be the Grandmother to the World! Who'd want to beat up on a little old lady who feeds us dates and naan bread?

Persia -- it just sounds nicer.

Labels: America, George W Bush, Middle East, politics, silliness, war - what is it good for?

I just heard that Jerry Falwell has died at 73. I feel a sense of relief.

I wish I were a better person, one with compassion for all, but he's the guy who said this:

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.

And let's not forget this gem, right after New York was attacked on September 11, 2001:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'

So I can't feel too sorry for him -- he's now sitting at the right hand of God in a glorious paradise free of anyone he disliked so very much.

At least that's what he hoped.

Labels: America, homo-a-go-go, media, politics, religion

Good news out of New Orleans:
"Mardi Gras seems more normal this year. Well, as normal as Mardi Gras can be."

In the face of the sickeningly-slow pace of reconstruction, it's great to see Nola slowly getting her mojo back. I'm looking forward to the moment when this sentimental number from the great Billie Holliday (in the 1947 film New Orleans) returns to being lovely, instead of poignant:

Labels: America, music, repair

Jim Wallis has an op-ed piece in Time that I hope proves to be true:

As I have traveled around the country, one line in my speeches always draws cheers: "The monologue of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has now begun." We have now entered the post-Religious Right era. Though religion has had a negative image in the last few decades, the years ahead may be shaped by a dynamic and more progressive faith that will make needed social change more possible.

People have always told me that religion is necessary because "it brings people together." I've seen precious little real evidence of that -- mostly the opposite -- but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

Labels: America, evolution, politics, religion

John Edwards, Democratic Presidential candidate, has been ordered to fire two of his campaign staffers by Bill Donahue, leader of the Catholic League. Donogue says Edwards "has chosen to embrace foul-mouthed, anti-Catholic bigots on his payroll." According to their press statement:

"On November 1, 2006, on her blogspot Shakespeare’s Sister, [Melissa McEwan] referred to President Bush’s ‘wingnut Christofascist base’ when lashing out against religious conservatives. On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, ‘What don’t you lousy motherf---ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?’"

Personally, on my blog, I try to tone down the swearing but, for some odd reason, I know exactly how Melissa feels. Edwards admitted that he was "personally offended" by his staffers' previous comments but told reporters that the duo "gave me their word they, under no circumstances, intended to denigrate any church or anybody's religion and offered their apologies for anything that indicated otherwise. I took them at their word."

Sounds fair and should probably end there, but it won't. Donahue, or others like him, will continue to shriek about anti-religious bigotry. Too bad I can't sympathize, though, since Donahue, so concerned with civility and fairness and religious sensitivity, said this in December 2004:

"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular...Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism...these people are in the margins. Frankly, Michael Moore represents a cult movie. Mel Gibson represents the mainstream of America."

My greatest fear is that Bill might be right about that, but I suspect mainstream America is more like comedian Louis CK, the creator of a Married With Children-type sitcom called Lucky Louie on HBO. Donahue attacked his show as "barbaric" and two radio morning show guys got them together to hash it out. It's a long clip but worth it for the way Donahue goes completely unhinged at the end. Sure, he's being ganged up on but this peek inside his head is like a really good horror movie, creepy and fascinating:



Oh, I get it: Donahue is a hero, trying to protect us from Arabian horses, bias crimes, Dakota Fanning movies and white Martin Luther King statue fetishists.

Or something.

Labels: America, media, politics, religion

There was an old Saturday Night Live fake commercial for "BAD IDEA Jeans" in which basketball buddies make comments like, "Now that I have kids, I feel a lot better having a gun in the house," and the screen flashes BAD IDEA.

I guess the ad was successful because there's many, many pairs of those jeans being worn now. And, for the most part, we're used to it. When I inevitably stop over the latest insane headline of a newspaper and inevitably rant, "Wow, can you believe this shit?" someone will inevitably say, "So what? It's just someone's opinion. Who cares?" Those people will undoubtedly live longer than I will but I still have to argue with them because we're never just dealing with one wrong opinion. A bad opinion stems from a bad idea and, like an untreated infection, will lead to bad actions, even from well-meaning people.

Here's my two favourite recent examples: last week, Joe Biden announced his candidacy for the US Presidential race. Like a typical politician, he did so not with a speech explaining why he'd be the best choice but with a speech criticizing his opponents. Biden now-infamously described his fellow Democratic presidential candidate and strong up-and-comer Barack Obama as "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." BAD IDEA. As blogger Atrios said, "I believe we've just witnessed the shortest presidential run in history."

While most of us howled over Biden's unconscious racism with his use of "articulate and bright" and puzzled over what the hell he was thinking with the word "clean," others were pointing out that he'd made previous racial comments, like this gem: "You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking." And remember, he's the left-winger. The only thing worse than his foot-in-mouth disease was what happened next, as the foot-in-head crowd dissected his comments. Two days ago, Bill O'Reilly actually said this to Temple University professor Dr. Marc Lamont Hill:

Now you got to feel sorry for us white folks here, because I’m telling you now I’m afraid to say anything...Instead of black and white Americans coming together, white Americans are terrified. They’re terrified. Now we can’t even say you’re articulate? We can’t even give you guys compliments because they may be taken as condescension?

Oh Bill, for the love of God, shut up! Don't you see the big neon BAD IDEA hanging in the air? Dr. Hill predictably, gorgeously, tore Bill a new one though, as usual, the host didn't notice. He was probably still marveling at how articulate Hill was. Meanwhile, on that same February 5th, national radio host, CNN anchorman, ABC correspondent and walking example of the "liberal media" in action Glenn Beck also used the presence of a black author on his show to confess:

I don’t have a lot of African-American friends, and I think part of it is because I’m afraid that I would be in an open conversation, and I would say something that somebody would take wrong, and then it would be a nightmare. Am I alone in feeling that?

No, of course not, Glenn -- there's lots of bigots out there. I love that Bill and Glenn suffer from the same fear: that their hearty pronouncements of "the truth" will be met with hostility by those confused, uppity Negroes. Why must the blacks be so sensitive? This is the ultimate BAD IDEA.

Beck infamous called the Katrina survivors "scumbags" and demanded that Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Since he's dumber and more arrogant than Bill O'Reilly(!), I could go on about Glenn Beck all day (BAD IDEA) so I'll just point out Media Matters' extensive listing of his horrible opinions.

I have to move on to my second example of how well-meaning people can be roped in by bad ideas, courtesy of William Saletan, a columnist for Slate who's written excellent pieces explaining stem-cell research, cloning, the abortion debate, etc. He shocked me this week with his column on the New Zealand 'gay sheep' study. For the first time, we have hard evidence that homosexuality is biologically determined (at least in sheep, anyway). Neat! Until Saletan goes all Frankenstein on us:

"Roselli offers lots of evidence that human homosexuality is linked to biological conditions, some of them genetic. If he figures out how to manipulate sexual orientation in sheep, will others try to manipulate it in humans? We already have. Doctors used to "treat" homosexuality with hormone injections. Some still do. This idea failed miserably in adults, but it might work in fetuses, since their brains are forming. And if we can't engineer sexual orientation, maybe we can select it. Millions of Asians have used modern sex tests to identify and abort female fetuses. If we learn how to recognize gay brains in development, look out.

But killing is the horror scenario. The more likely path is gentler. Science will gradually convince us that sexual orientation is innate, more like the color of your skin than like the content of your character. Condemnation of homosexuality as a sin will subside. Freed from the culture wars, we'll turn to the biological differences between race and sexual orientation: Homosexuality defies the aspiration to procreate with your mate, and it's easier to isolate and alter in embryonic development. Resentment will give way to pity. We'll come to view homosexuality as a kind of infertility —- a disability, like deafness. The rhetoric of "acceptance" will shift from liberals to conservatives. We'll inoculate our offspring against homosexuality out of love, not hate."

Saletan's column had me quaking in horror at the notion of eradicating homosexuality by genetically-altering fetuses. I swear I could hear the hospital page for Dr. Mengele, Dr. Mengele to the operating room. For decades, we've had to listen to bigots go on about me and my friends being "unnatural" -- now they want to practice altering the chromosomes of babies? BAD IDEA. Isn't that an awful lot of work just to prevent the next Elton John? Is any of this making sense?

But that's science fiction, one might say. Calm down. Even if the whole world hated gays, we've proved pretty tough to eradicate over the centuries, no? Why not relax? If a bunch of people have racist or homophobic views, that's their problem -- we're dealing with it just fine. Well, I have to ask, are we?:

"The Ku Klux Klan, which just a few years ago seemed static or even moribund compared to other white supremacist movements such as neo-Nazis, experienced "a surprising and troubling resurgence" during the past year due to the successful exploitation of hot-button issues including immigration, gay marriage and urban crime, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The League, which monitors the activities of racist hate groups and reports its findings to law enforcement and policymakers, has documented a noticeable spike in activity by Klan chapters across the country. The KKK believes that the U.S. is "drowning" in a tide of non-white immigration, controlled and orchestrated by Jews, and is vigorously trying to bring this message to Americans concerned or fearful about immigration."

So let me make sure I've got this: it's the 21st friggin' century and we have a spike in membership for the Ku Klux Klan? Because the good ol' boys have put away their bedsheets and learned to make nice with Nazis? Wow, Molly sure was right about the ATM and the garlic press! But, as I've said, all these 'concerns and fears' simply stem from bad opinions made up of bad ideas -- notably the tired old canard that everything is the Jews' fault. The Jews I've known can't agree on bacon, let alone running the planet, and the KKK are trying to convince people that America is being overrun with Muslim fanatics because that's what Jews want? Yeah, good luck with that.

But Barnum was right -- there's a fuckwit born every minute (I paraphrase, of course) and John Rogers' 27% Crazification Factor theory still seems apt to me. All we can do to stem the tide is to come up with better ideas, or at least make savage fun of the bad ones.

I admit the latter is more fun but almost as necessary. How, for instance, could I -- growing up in white-bread Hamilton -- ever have a problem with black people? I grew up watching Bill Cosby on TV, hearing Martin Luther King's famous speech, dancing to Aretha Franklin and, perhaps most powerfully, learning about black history from Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live:

"So, Professor Carver's two dinner guests...Edward 'Skippy' Williamson and Frederick 'Jif' Armstrong -- two white men -- stole George Washington Carver's recipe for peanut butter, copyrighted it, and reaped untold fortunes from it. While Dr. Carver died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.
This has been "Black History Minute". I'm Professor Shabazz K. Morton. Good night."

I was 13 years old and Murphy's hilarious delivery burned into my memory, just like the BAD IDEA jeans sketch. Ultimately, bad ideas are useless and silly so I like a useless and silly response. Fight fire with fire. Like the two nimrods who shut down Boston last week -- I might have disagreed with their hare-brained corporate marketing stunt if not for the wildly-paranoid overreaction from the city's mayor and administration. It was so ridiculous that I could only applaud the two goofballs for their Dada press conference. Listening to the reporters getting angrier and more self-righteous in their questioning is still funny a week later.

As for the gay sheep -- implications aside, the story is kind of funny but leave it to wisecracking playwright Paul Rudnick to bring it home. His New Yorker piece, you see, was a very very Good Idea. And, in the interest of fairness, so is the end of Saletan's piece (mainly because he agrees with me, of course -- ha ha). Having hastily lumped him in with Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, I give him the last word:

But bad ideas —- communism, eugenics, wars of liberation -— don't happen because they're bad. They happen because, in the beginning, they're good. What we do with the biological truth about homosexuality, for good or ill, isn't written in our hormones or our genes. It's up to us.

Labels: America, evolution, homo-a-go-go, insanity, politics, religion

Last week, I mocked the Boston authorities for over-reacting to the light-up cartoon character devices scattered throughout the city, but this clever clip illustrates both the awesome power of the Lite Brite and the horrifying consequences of their misuse:

Labels: America, insanity, Orwell says hi

Molly Ivins died this week at the age of 62 from what she joked was "a scorching case of cancer":

"Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that...I had been in great hopes I would become a better person as a result of confronting my own mortality, but it actually never happened. I didn't become a better person."

This was the kind of quip she was famous for. Ivins was a Texas political journalist who described her early career in the late '60s as "making heroes of militant blacks, angry Indians, radical students, uppity women and a motley assortment of other misfits and troublemakers." She became a nationally-syndicated columnist but never a rich and famous TV pundit like so many lesser writers (though she's great on camera in this 1986 commentary on "fine ort" in Texas and in this amusing video on their sex laws). TV didn't know what to do with her -- she was too outspoken, too Southern, too sharp and too liberal.

Molly Ivins could listen to tedious speeches, read thick and dull budget reports, wade into the most polluted swamp of political spin and then explain, with wit and punch, what it all meant for ordinary working people. She knew a liar when she heard one and a fool when she saw one, and she'd write about them both, but always fairly: "I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth." I'd agree, if not for the fact that, well, Molly always told the truth. She did it well, she did it often and, on the occasions when she did make a mistake, she owned up to it in print (check out this incredible exchange between Ivins and famous misanthrope Florence King, for instance). Her obituary for her father both charms and haunts (it's well worth the annoying newspaper registration) so, rather than try to match that, the best tribute I can give Molly is to show you why I became a fan:

"I guess that was the first shock. Ronnie and Kaye had prepared me to find all manner of vile, venal types in the Legislature, villains without scruples and self-interested dastards without remorse. I didn’t find them. I found only stupid men. I found representatives so dumb they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. There are no villains: there are only asses."
-- June 18, 1971

"I have long maintained that Texans are not easy to love: we are, like anchovies, an acquired taste. I myself feel that we should be given points for our enthusiasm...At least Texans retain a capacity for awe in the face of something as awesome as the Colorado mountains."
-- December 30, 1977

“If [Rep. Jim Collins'] IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.”
-- sometime in the early '80s

"Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel -– it's vulgar."
–- December 9, 1991

"Many people did not care for Pat Buchanan's speech; it probably sounded better in the original German."
–- September 14, 1992

"I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."
-- July 19, 1994

"Politics in this country isn't about left and right; it's about up and down. The few are screwing the many."
-- September 8, 1994

"Sometimes I think I made Warren Chisum up for my own amusement...The egregious Representative Chisum is once more trying to get gays taken out of coverage under the hate-crimes bill because, he says, gays bring violence on themselves...'They go to parks and pick up men, and they don't know if that someone is gay or not.' Sure. Right."
-- February 9-23, 1995

"If it weren't for the automatic teller machine and the self-cleaning garlic press, we'd have no evidence of progress at all...Let's face it: the evidence is always on the side of the pessimists. In fact, one of the few pro-optimism arguments that work is to point out that things can always get worse, which means we should be cheerful right now, because now will eventually be the Good Old Days."
-- May 7, 1995

"I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle."
-- May 30, 1995

"I have wasted more time and space defending Clinton than I care to think about. If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied."
-- from the introduction to her 1998 collection, You Got to Dance With Them What Brung You

"Arguing against the death penalty in Texas is such a bootless enterprise that over the years, I have worn down to merely advocating that we not kill (a) the innocent; (b) the mentally retarded; and (c) people who are so mentally ill that they think they’re black dogs in the seventh circle of hell and run around on all fours barking. As you know, these arguments have not prevailed, and we continue to bump off people in all three categories."
-- February 5, 1999

"The sponsor of the tax break in the Senate, J.E. 'Buster' Brown, explained simply, 'The oil industry is hurting.' And there’s nothing like pain in the oil industry to touch off compassion in a conservative."
-- March 5, 1999

"George W. is the unexamined candidate, and the extent to which he is unexamined gets eerier as Election Day approaches. At least half the country is prepared to vote for the guy; if asked why, they reply, 'Seems like a nice fella.' I like him myself. But he is often clueless, he does not have a nice record, and the idea of electing him president scares the living fantods out of me. I like my nephew, I like my mailman and the lady at the dry cleaners. That doesn’t mean they’re ready to be president."
-- November 3, 2000

"If killing more people were the answer, there would have been peace in the Middle East 50 years ago. The answer is justice, and there is nothing weak-kneed about it."
-- October 26, 2001

“I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. [Iraq] is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’”
-- January 16, 2003

"I have never lost a political storytellin’ contest in any category: crooked pols, dumb pols, out-goddamned-rageous pols. We win -— and we never have to make up anything. How can I lose with material like the time Rep. Mike Martin paid his Cousin Eddie to shoot him in the arm with a shotgun, and then claimed it had been done by a Satanic and communistic cult. You think I can find stuff this weird anywhere else? This is why I’m still in Texas."
-- December 3, 2004

"We can now safely assert that W. has stacked much of the federal government with people like himself. And what you get when you put people in charge of government who don’t believe in government and who are not interested in running it well is...what happened after Hurricane Katrina.
Often in the past six years I have bit my tongue so I wouldn’t annoy people with the always obnoxious observation, “I told you so.” But, dammit all to hell, I did tell you, and I’ve been telling you since 1994, and I am so sick of this man and everything he represents -— all the sleazy, smug, self-righteous graft and corruption and “Christian” moralizing and cynicism and tax cuts for all his smug, rich buddies.
Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention [emphasis mine, of course]."
-- September 23, 2005

"On the general subject of political corruption, do not fall into the fatal error of cynicism. You do your country a great disservice by saying things like: "Eh, they're all crooks. Nothing anyone can do about it. Money will always find a way."
The answer is perpetual reform. Fix it, and if corruption comes back again, you just whack back at it again."
-- January 11, 2006

Those last two are the ones that really get me. She spent a decade warning her fellow Texans about their useless Governor, yet they and the rest of America elected him President, with disastrous results. Nevertheless, she never lost hope, she never went silent and she never stopped believing in the decency and, yes, power of ordinary people. This is the end of her last column, published January 12, 2007:

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, 'Stop it, now!'"

Yep, Molly Ivins went out the way she came in -- kicking at the pricks with a grin on her face. I discovered her columns during the Clinton impeachment, loved her ever since, and regret that I've never praised her in print before. Somehow I believed that, despite the cancer, she would outlive us all. As she famously wrote:

"Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce."

Goddamn, what a woman.

In tribute, the Texas Observer has reprinted many of her classic columns, including the one she penned when leaving the paper to join the New York Times in 1976. It was charming then and appropriately lovely now:

"And for me, it’s leaving time. I have a grandly dramatic vision of myself stalking through the canyons of the Big Apple in the rain and cold, dreaming about driving with the soft night air of East Texas rushing on my face while Willie Nelson sings softly on the radio, or about blasting through the Panhandle under a fierce sun and pale blue sky, laughing at Clarence Zugenbuler’s stock report. I’ll remember. I’ll remember the way the printer’s feels at 4 a.m. What it’s like to read The Dallas Morning News editorial page. Sunsets, rivers, hills, plains, the Gulf, woods, a thousand beers in a thousand joints, and sunshine and laughter. And people. Mostly I’ll remember people...
I wanted to call this The Long Goodbye, but Kaye wouldn’t let me. She wanted to call it, Ivins Indulges in Horrible Fit of Sentimentality.
I love you. Goodbye, my friends."

At her memorial today, Andy Ivins told the crowd that he'd once asked his sister why she always walked so fast. She told him, "What you do is you look up at the horizon, and you go quicker." Then, blues singer Marcia Ball sang Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." Perfect.

Labels: America, evolution, politics, religion, tributes, war - what is it good for?, writing

No one is ever simple. Every person has at least two or three warring strands in their nature. For instance, the now-infamous Ted Haggard -- popular and respected religious leader by day, gay crystal-meth enthusiast by night. Reconciling such competing strands within ourselves is the work we all face in our lives.

For me, it's the split between my obsession with all the Very Big, Very Serious stuff of life (karma, life after death, the coming war with Iran -- you know, the usual) and my delight in tiny, inane, everyday absurdities (the kind of stuff that's clearly making Larry David both rich and insane). I never know if I'm taking things too seriously or not seriously enough. I believe my fondness for science fiction always stemmed from all that -- it's always about huge apocalyptic disasters threatening the lives of millions of people across the entire universe (oh the drama!), yet always perpetrated by sexy clones in red cocktail dresses or shrieking cyborg trashcans. It's the sublime and the ridiculous!

So, with all that said, can you imagine how much I enjoyed yesterday's terrorist attack on Boston? I say 'enjoyed' because these were the terrorists:

They're called Mooninites, evil creatures from our moon who proudly assert their "superiority" to humans (see horrifying footage of their cruelty here ,here and here). Yesterday in Boston, these monsters -- like the Martians of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938 -- brought a major American city to its knees!

Just like the Mel Gibson movie, there were Signs. Three weeks ago, the Mooninites scattered dozens of battery-powered light boards with images of themselves (in other words, bombs) throughout major American cities -- Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia. Most of the cities didn't notice the lights. In New York, police quietly removed about 40 of them, having received no complaints. In Seattle, the Public Works department removed a few without notifying police. But the vigilant Boston authorities mobilized in force, effectively shutting down the city core, while the local news media panicked the citizens. These actions prevented the hypothetical deaths of thousands of people.

With more awareness of the interplanetary threat, these attacks on Boston could have been prevented. As Paul Hellyer, Canada's former Minister of National Defense, told an audience at U of T in November 2005:

"The Bush Administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide...The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning."

The man's a loon, you think, but it was that same month that President Bush had claimed outer space for America. Did no one think the moon's evildoers would not retaliate? Oh, if only the world had heeded the professor's warning! Our only defense against a full-scale Mooninite invasion is this video game!

Okay, okay, I'll stop. Yes, I found this whole thing hilarious from start to finish but it's not just me -- my friend Tara loves Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the cartoon that caused all this, though I still can't shake the belief that you really have to be high to enjoy it. Like the kids on YouTube, who've been all over this event (with coverage here and here). Best of all, not even the people who've been arrested have been able keep a straight face (typical Mooninite-enabling scum!) and, for me, one clip has summed up the whole thing with hilarious precision:



But, as I'm wont to do, let me put my Serious hat on for a minute and admit that, yes, this was an actual problem for Boston. People were frightened, lives were put on hold, ambulances were stuck in traffic. How could the marketers think that planting unknown electronic devices under bridges and roadways would not freak people out? How irresponsible can one be, especially in marketing a cartoon? They didn't take into account what's been distressingly referred to as "the post-9/11 mindset."

As Boston Mayor Thomas Merino said, "It is outrageous, in a post-9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme." A lot of people would like to see these guerrilla-marketing pranksters behind bars. My sympathies obviously lie on the other side but I recognize the debate: in a culture still struggling between a necessary awareness of terrorist threats and a debilitating non-stop paranoia, should people be less sensitive or more sensitive?

Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin quoted Jason Smith, a reader who asked, "I wonder if someone is sitting back and simply studying the emergency response protocol and timing...trying to identify weak spots and gaps to exploit for a real attack?" Considering the news reports stating that, as of last night, the Boston authorities had only found 10 of 24 devices, let's certainly hope not. All that diverted Homeland Security money is not paying off. Lucky for us, it's just Jason watching too much 24. As one blogger at Crooks and Liars wrote, "These were Lite Brites -- children's toys that light up. The Mayor and the rest of the city government threw the city into a panic, when they could've solved the 'crisis' by talking to a ten-year-old." Old Beantown looks especially silly when one recalls the actual bombings in London subways in July 2005 -- the British didn't wet their pants, they just went back to work and down the pub while the police began the process of tracking down and arresting suspects.

My heroes in all this are a pair of Boston women. Jennifer Mason, 26, told KUTV News, "It's almost too easy to be a terrorist these days. You stick a box on a corner and you can shut down a city." Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old nurse, left for work at Massachusetts General Hospital at 4 pm, after seeing the drama on TV: "I saw the bomb squad guys carrying a paper bag with their bare hands. I knew it couldn't be too serious." That, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. I hope that Boston has learned to heed the warning from the moon:

"We are the Mooninites and our culture is advanced beyond all that you can possibly comprehend with 100% of your brain."

Clearly, we're gonna need every scrap!

Labels: America, evolution, friends, introspective, Orwell says hi

I think that this kind of thing is exactly what columnist Heather Mallick was talking about in her piece about the American tendency for hysterical overreaction. You're right--when London was bombed, the English sat back, made a cup of tea and told sick jokes. Ten lite-brites are left out, and Boston is shut down. Guerilla marketing experts are calling it a bad move in the post-9/11 world--except that America really needs get a sense of perspective (and humour) about the whole thing. Really.

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at February 05, 2007

 

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A strange thing happened on 60 Minutes last night: the President sat down for an interview with someone other than a Fox News puppet and was asked (what?) serious questions...

SCOTT PELLEY: "You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what?"

PRESIDENT BUSH: "On what issue? Like the weapons of mass destruction?"

PELLEY: "No weapons of mass destruction."

BUSH: "Yeah."

PELLEY: "No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq."

BUSH: “Yeah.”

PELLEY: “The Office of Management and Budget said this war would cost somewhere between $50 billion and $60 billion and now we're over 400.”

BUSH: “I gotcha. I gotcha. I gotcha.”

PELLEY: “The perception, Sir, more than any one of those points, is that the administration has not been straight with...”

BUSH: “Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course. I strongly reject that this administration hasn’t been straight with the American people. The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so.”

Oh, for pity's sake -- STOP LYING. Dubya consistently makes Bill Clinton sound like George Washington, and Richard Nixon like Mother Theresa. How low does this bar have to drop?

Okay then, George, I do this for you and that sad, strange 25% of Americans who still cling to these imperial fantasies that kill. For the last bloody time...

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
-- George W. Bush, March 18, 2003

There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
-- Gen. Tommy Franks, Mar 22 2003

We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
-- Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003

"Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit."
-- Tony Blair, April 28 2003

"In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
-- George W. Bush, May 1 2003

"U.S. officials never expected that we were going to open garages and find weapons of mass destruction."
-- Condoleeza Rice, May 12 2003

"Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."
-- Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 26 2003

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction [as justification for invading Iraq] because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
-- Paul Wolfowitz, May 28 2003

"I don't think they existed."
-- David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, Jan 23 2004

"I didn't think it through...It was a damned discoverable thing that other people brighter than I should have known. The lesson of life is that the 'obvious' isn't."
-- Jay Davis, former head of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Mar 17 2004

"I would say that Saddam Hussein clearly had the intention of having such weapons."
-- Colin Powell, Sept 17 2004

"We didn't find the stockpiles we thought would be there...Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision."
-- George W. Bush, Sept 18 2004

Of course he would. When Pelley quite reasonably asked if Bush feels at all "crushed" by the Iraq fiasco, Bush said, "Quite the contrary. My spirits are strong, and I’m blessed to be the president." Blessed! I'm sure that'll warm the hearts of military parents as the next round of fallen soldiers are announced.

C'mon America, there's a solution for all this: it's called impeachment. It's not that hard. You did it to Clinton without blinking. Since Bush's May 1 2003 "we have prevailed" speech, you've spent more time in Iraq than you did in World War II. Put a fork in it! The fat lady has sung! And with 3000 dead soldiers and counting, the song's getting old.

Labels: America, George W Bush, media, Middle East, repair, war - what is it good for?

I would be very curious to know how many Americans believe that there are still WMD in Iraq, but that they got hidden during the invasion...

Also, the problem with impeachment is that Cheney would then take over, and he's even more evil than The Moron--uh, I mean Dubya.

-- Reply posted by  The Guy in DKNY at January 16, 2007

 

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Obviously, I've been turning cartwheels over this week's revelation that Ted Haggard, leader of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, bought crystal meth from the gay prostitute he's been visiting for three years. With the US midterm elections tomorrow, it's a political jackpot and the metaphorical culmination of everything I've been ranting about for years!

So why does it make me feel so sad?

Well, first off, I feel sorry for his wife and kids.
Mrs. Haggard must obviously be devastated and, as for the kids, it's hard enough on children when they learn that Dad lied to them about Santa Claus; what if Dad lied about everything he believed in and everything he taught you?

But I actually feel sorry for Ted Haggard.
Watching clips of the infamous interview (with his wife and kids in the car!!!), the troubling face-off with hectoring atheist Richard Dawkins or the truly-terrifying excerpt from Jesus Camp is all creepy enough, but reading transcripts of the prostitute detailing their time together in karmic 'Bill-Clinton-Starr-Report' fashion is totally gruesome.

Last year, Harpers did a lengthy profile on Haggard called Soldiers of Christ that I found profoundly unsettling; now it's also profoundly sad. The man is clearly a seething mass of frustrated contradictions:

The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.

For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach. Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint them.

I don't hear the words of a 48-year-old right-wing Christian leader in this statement Haggard made on Sunday, I hear the unhappy rationalizations of a gay teenager. Maybe I'm projecting here but this statement sounds an awful lot like what I was writing in my diary at 17. I wish someone could've taken Ted aside and said, "You're not repulsive and dark -- you're a homo!"

I even began to feel sorry for his followers. I can't imagine how confusing this must be for them. When Bill Clinton admitted to having sex with "that woman," I felt disappointed in him and frustrated by his lack of control. But when you get right down to it, Clinton wasn't part of a massive political movement blaming all the evils of society on young Jewish interns, was he? That kind of disconnect between Haggard's private actions and public rabble-rousing is the sticking point here and, unfortunately, where my sympathies end.

You see, I'd like to think to something good could come from this, that perhaps the evangelical movement will understand that splitting the world into 'us' versus 'them' never works because there's no distinction. 'They' are 'us' and 'us' are 'they.' I'd like to think that this incident may help evangelicals understand that homosexual is less important than the way people channel them. I want them to see that allowing a self-hating gay man to hide by marrying a woman and having five children will ultimately ruin all of their lives. I'd like them to accept that allowing such a person to be honest, to find and live peacefully with another man, would be far more beneficial to society than the sad freakshow we've had to witness this week. I would like to think that but the odds are unlikely when the conclusions are already drawn. Mollie at GetReligion quotes from an e-mail she received, comparing openly-gay Anglican bishop Gene Robinson to Ted Haggard:

A pastor is married for years, has children, runs a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, and then “finds himself” and abandons wife and children for a live-in situation with another man. His reward? Consecration as a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church of America and wide-ranging media praise
...
Another pastor apparently is married for years, has children, builds and runs a a successful church, advances in his denomination/sector of Christianity, fights temptation and loses, stays with his family, and when the dam breaks, is crucified in the press as his reward.

This to me is an insane comparison. Gene Robinson divorced his wife three years before he got involved with his current partner. He and his wife are still friends because he was honest with his family and his community through the whole 'coming out' process. However one might feel about Robinson's status as a bishop, anyone who can't see a difference between the way he's dealt with his sexuality and the way Haggard has is either intellectually or spiritually bankrupt. On that note, Canada's own poster boy for nepotism David Frum (creator of the hit catchphrase "Axis of Evil") then chimed on along similar lines:

Consider the hypothetical case of two men. Both are inclined toward homosexuality. Both from time to time hire the services of male prostitutes. Both have occasionally succumbed to drug abuse.

One of them marries, raises a family, preaches Christian principles, and tries generally to encourage people to lead stable lives.

The other publicly reveals his homosexuality, vilifies traditional moral principles, and urges the legalization of drugs and prostitution.
...
If a religious leader has a personal inclination toward homosexuality - and nonetheless can look past his own inclination to defend the institution of marriage and to affirm its benefits for the raising of children - why should he likewise not be honored for his intellectual firmness and moral integrity?

Where's the "intellectual firmness" in Haggard hiring a prostitute and buying crystal meth? Where's the "moral integrity" in doing so while denying people the right to marry? And lying to your own wife and children? And I love the way the argument is framed as either 'stay in the closet for the children' or 'wallow in drugs and prostitutes' -- because no middle ground is possible, right? I can't believe that Frum would try to peddle this kind of crap, but then I read this take from The Christian Post:

While Haggard has only partially admitted guilt, the situation in its entirety is a stark reminder of man’s sinfulness and a dark exposure of how deeply the sin of homosexuality has taken root in the American society. If the accusations are indeed true, now would be the time for the Evangelical community look within its own walls and battle against the culture of sin that looms before the Church of Christ.

Yes, I'd like to think something good could come from the sad story of Ted Haggard but it seems a lot of other lessons have been learned, all of them wrong and none of them helpful.

Labels: America, family, homo-a-go-go, politics, religion, repair

Since conservative Christians were first credited with sweeping Bush into power (twice!) I've obviously carried quite the chip on my shoulder, but how could I not? Their blind, pointless hatred of gay people allowed America to be taken over by thieves, liars, warmongers, racists and child molesters.

Nice job, folks.

And in a Fox News culture, no one listens to the other Christians quietly doing good work -- let alone the Godless Liberals or the Evil Homosexuals -- but now (finally!) liberal Christians are speaking up -- like with this billboard in Connecticut:



"Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice" -- sweeter words have rarely been spoken! And only in this warped era could a condemnation of torturing other human beings be considered a daring political statement.

Meanwhile, David Kuo, former head of Bush's "faith-based initiatives" program, was on Bill Maher's show this weekend to discuss the White House's betrayal. As usual, Maher's a bit of a jerk but Kuo comes off as a champ:

Labels: America, George W Bush, media, politics, religion, repair

So Republican congressman Mark Foley got caught trying to sexually exploit the teenaged pages who worked in Congress, but wait -- it wasn't his fault! Foley's lawyer held a press conference to say that his client had entered alcohol rehab and that Foley had been sexually abused by a priest as a teen.

This week, Foley named that priest -- Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 69 -- who immediately faced up to his sin:

"I had a nervous breakdown and was taking some pills and alcohol and maybe I did something that he didn't like."

Maybe. He just doesn't remember, people! It's like poor Mel Gibson -- a little too much to drink and suddenly you're an anti-Semite! Fortunately, Foley's boss and Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert didn't drink when he covered up the whole scandal for nearly a decade. But wait -- it wasn't his fault! As President Bush explains,

"[Hastert's] done a fine job as speaker, and when he stands up and says 'I want to know the truth'...and I believe yesterday he said that if somebody on his staff, you know, didn't tell him the truth, they're gone. I respect that and appreciate that and believe him."

Blaming underlings is odd, coming from the party of personal responsibility. After all, when Bush was nominated their leader in 2000, he said,

After all of the shouting and all of the scandal, after all the bitterness and broken faith, we can begin again...An era of tarnished ideals is giving way to a responsibility era, and it won't be long now.

Maybe that'll be November 7th, when Americans have the chance to finally kick some of these weasels out of office. Maybe they'll take responsibility then.

Labels: America, George W Bush, insanity, religion, repair

By now, it's common knowledge that the media was useless in investigating the run-up to war with Iraq but, as the US now unbelievably tries to start the same thing with Iran, it's good to see CNN asking the tough questions:

WOLF BLITZER: So you think it's realistic to assume if [Iran]had a bomb, they would actually use it?

JOHN BOLTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: I think it's realistic in a regime that is the central banker of international terrorism that is seeking a ballistic missile capability far beyond any legitimate defensive needs they might have, but which also puts arms and weapons in the hands of terrorists today. We've got a threat if they had the weapon, they could not make it with a ballistic missile, they could give it to a terrorist group like Hamas or Hezbollah as well.

BLITZER: Well that sounds very ominous, even much more dangerous than what the United States feared going into the war with Iraq.

'Gosh, Mr. Bolton, that Iran is so scary!! We'd better let our manly President do whatever he feels is necessary!'

Oy vey.

Labels: America, George W Bush, insanity, Middle East, war - what is it good for?

Joe Scarborough, right-wing TV host and former Republican congressman, recently posed the question, "Is Bush an Idiot?" and now criticizes his fellow Republicans for not speaking up against this failed presidency:

That silence -- proof that it is better to be feared than loved in politics -- has had devastating results. The United States is more divided than ever, our leaders are despised around the world, our fiscal situation is catastrophic and congressional approval ratings are the lowest ever. Since nothing sharpens the mind like a political hanging, Republican leaders in the Senate and House are finally considering doing what effete newspaper editorialists have suggested for years: throwing Bush overboard.

I'd like to speak on behalf of effete editorialists everywhere when I say hello, Joe, and welcome aboard the Good Ship Reality! Let's set sail for a new horizon...

Labels: America, George W Bush, media, politics, repair

The radio this morning practically shrieked with hysteria over today's anniversary. "WHERE WERE YOU ON THAT DAY?" the announcer demanded. It's obscene.

I know where I was. You know where you were. Those of you who lost someone in the attacks remember all too well. I don't live in New York or Washington. I was safe, my friends and loved ones were safe, and for that I'm grateful. I don't need to say any more.

I'd even planned to leave the topic alone altogether (!), until hearing about this "Path to 9/11" TV-movie that aired last night and tonight, this disgraceful piece of propaganda from ABC/Disney. The movie invents scenes out of thin air designed to blame the WTC attacks on Bill Clinton's laziness in the years previous, while whitewashing George W. Bush's ineptitude before, during and after the attacks.

While I'm sure every member of the Clinton administration regrets what more they could've done, these accusations against them are being made by the same people who blocked Clinton's anti-terrorist legislation and condemned his attempts to kill Osama bin Laden as a cheap ploy to distract attention from the earthshattering importance of Monica Lewinsky. It was a disturbingly cynical attack on him then, and even more so now, as no amount of spin or revisionist history can excuse the colossal and horrific failures of the Bush White House.

I am not interested in continually reliving 9/11 but I would like to relive 9/12 -- that tiny flicker of hope and unity that so briefly flourished in the worldwide response to the attacks. The squandering of that moment, that opportunity, is the second tragedy, says the New York Times' Frank Rich this week.

His opinion is shared by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. He's been on fire this week -- I'd posted a previous commentary below -- but last night's commentary is even more heartfelt, angry and powerful. I still hope that people will listen because there's nothing wrong with the world that we can't fix, so long as we stop listening to the static of fear and lies, and start listening to people like these:

Labels: America, George W Bush, media, politics, repair

The just-passed gay marriage ban in Utah has had the usual unintended consequences for heterosexual people. A man has been charged with ignoring a restraining order issued by his former girlfriend and his attorney is arguing that the new ban's "prohibition of legal recognition of any domestic union that is substantially equivalent to a marriage" makes enforcing the restraining order unconstitutional.

These sorts of things have happened before -- straight people arrested under vaguely-written sodomy laws and what not. If conservatives keep throwing around the 'war' label, I guess these people could be considered 'collateral damage.' I keep insisting that until we decide on some fair standard of marriage for all people, these sort of legal wrangles will continue, with a lot of pain for those involved.

Meanwhile, Thomas Caramagno, Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, has weighed in with his necessary book, "Irreconcilable Differences? Intellectual Stalemate in the Gay Rights Debate." Caramagno rightly asks:

What happened to the "debate" in "the gay rights debate"? Moral condemnations and demonizing stereotypes do not advance useful dialog. The disputants have become perfect enemies, divided on every issue with such intensity that consensus--or even detente--seems impossible...No single profile for homosexuals exists that can encompass the diverse individuals who comprise the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered / transsexual (LGBT) population, just as there is no monolithic model for heterosexuals who oppose legal protections for GLBTs. The gay rights debate is stalemated because each side oversimplifies and pathologizes the other's perspective.

And because the other guys are a bunch of redneck bigots, of course!

Labels: America, homo-a-go-go, Orwell says hi, politics, religion

(C'mon -- someone had to go there; it might as well be me!)

The political career of Colin Powell has reached its sad, inevitable end. I'm glad he was finally let go, however -- oh sorry, he "resigned" -- because he's escaping an abusive relationship. He was ignored by Bush, plotted against by Donald Rumsfeld, told about the first strike on Iraq after the Saudi ambassador(!) and now replaced by the dreadful Condoleezza Rice. Oh, and a White House intern gave him the leaky pens.

It's agreed by pretty much everyone that Powell was the only dissenting voice in the White House during the build-up to the Iraq debacle. Nevertheless, like the good soldier he's always been, he went to the UN and delivered this now-infamous speech on a need to invade based on Saddam's (barely-existent) "weapons of mass destruction."

History will have to decide if he knew it was all crap -- making him a liar -- or if he truly believed the evidence he was handed -- making him a stooge. An unpleasant choice unworthy of a previously admirable man.

Labels: America, George W Bush, war - what is it good for?