Category Archives: Current Affairs
Satan’s Letter to Pat Robertson
Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the
shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people
when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that
Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil
incarnate, but I'm no welcher.
The way you put it, making a deal with me
leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but
when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on
earth — glamor, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle.
Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And 
that was before
the earthquake.
Haven't you seen "Crossroads"?
Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots
of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind
of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing
against it — I'm just saying: Not how I roll.
You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip
your wings — just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the
good kind of bad.
Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan
This was originally published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in their Letters To the Editor section. It was later revealed to have been written by a Lily Coyle of Minneapolis.
NOH8 Cindy
Cindy McCain has posed for an ad released by the NOH8 campaign, a pro-gay-marriage effort that pictures celebrities with their mouths taped shut. McCain appears in the usual format: dressed in white, with "NOH8" painted on her cheek and silver duct tape across her mouth.
John McCain opposed gay marriage during his 2008 presidential run, and his wife rarely speaks out on particular issues. McCain's office issued a statement saying that the senator respects differences of opinion between his family members, but still "believes the sanctity of marriage is only defined as between one man and one woman."
Or perhaps "between one man and one woman who thinks her husband is an idiot."?
Long Hairs In Texas
A story from Texas this morning seems trivial. A little kid in pre-Kindergarten is being sent home, suspended, because his hair is too long. Four years old and this kid has already run smack dab into institutional gender comformity. It's not the style of his hair it's just the length. And it's not very long either. Little "tater tot" as he likes to be called just likes wearing his hair long. But that's not acceptable to the defenders of propriety at the Mesquite Independent School Dis
trict outside of Dallas, Texas.
When the boy didn't comply (his parents are supporting him 100%) the school isolated him from the rest of the students. The boy is FOUR YEARS OLD. But we must not let such untoward behavior contaminate the rest of the children. Can't let the other boys wear their hair a bit long.
Now this blog is about Gay issues and this story isn't directly about a Gay issue. But I do think it's related to Gay experience in that it's a reminder of the still present gender conformity that is drilled into the (well-shorn) heads of kids at such an early age. What's missing in the Associated Press coverage of this story is a recognition that the boy is not wearing hair the way BOYS are "supposed" to wear it. Girls can have long hair and braid it and have it in pony tails. There is no doubt that this wouldn't be an issue if Taylor was a girl. But he's a boy and Balch Springs, Texas has very strict rules about how boys should look. And I think it's right here that the problem starts. This is one of the places where societies start laying down expectations on how boys and should be, and act, and dress, with no sense of whether such judgments are based on anything more than personal mores and prejudice.
Even worse little Taylor Pugh likes his hair. Click on that link and look at him sitting there beaming. His hair isn't causing a problem for anyone but the uptight scolds who don't have anything better to do but over-regiment the lives of little kids in their care. As the wise sage musician Frank Zappa once said "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." Well the Mesquite Independent School District will make sure there's no deviation from their boring calcified norm.
I expect this will not hold up in court. And I applaud Taylor's parents for letting their son pursue what he loves and for exploring his own individuality. It's an important lesson to learn at an early age.
A Lovely Video – Nothing Taboo
Gays In Cuba
The current issue of In These Times offers a rare look at life for "Gay in Cuba."
The piece (indeed all the issue's cover stories) were translated by the Cuban-American blogger and Lambda Literary Award winner Achy Obejas.
The assessment seems to be that nothing's changed since the days of Reinaldo Arenas.
But it's great to know that there's a Reinaldo Arenas Memorial Foundation in Cuba that's working for change there.
The article is definitely worth a read.
A Profile in Courage
There just isn't much more to add to what this New York State Senator offered before the defeat of marriage equality in New York State, except that this is what leadership looks like.
Uganda’s Gay Killings & the American Right Wing
Rachel Maddow does a masterful job of connecting the dots between Uganda's reprehensible and barbaric proposed "KILL GAY PEOPLE" law and the American Right Wing and its members in the U.S. Congress. A must watch video clip:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=1QffRJaxKX4
World AIDS Day
It's World AIDS Day.
That's nice.
…and I'm reminded of some Black comic's comment about February being "African American History Month"…"typical…we get the shortest month."
Which is to say, one day to remember is woefully shy of the task.
I remain angry at the homophobic, puritanical, punishing, sex-fearing, "christian" response to HIV-AIDS. And how long it took Ronald Reagan to even say the word "AIDS" (and that it took the death of a closeted movie star and a heroic Elizabeth Taylor to finally get him to utter it.) I remain angry at the idea of "innocent victims" of this disease.
I remain angry at how little memory there is for how Gay people responded to this, growing up, growing together, growing institutions. How little memory there is for how Gay people fed and sheltered and cared for one another…and angry that my friends are still sero-converting in 2009.
I remain angry at how brutally expensive AIDS meds are in the U.S. (and how cheap they are elsewhere) while the nimrods and the bloviators and the moralizing hypocrites in the Congress (yeah…I'm talking to you Joe Lieberman!…you ugly asswipe!) squash a public option…the only real way to provide competition to the profit-seeking, blood-sucking insurance companies…that would provide healthcare coverage for every American citizen, just like every other industrialized nation in the world!
Shame on the Senate. Shame on our elected officials.
Shame on the churches who came so late to the aid of the neediest and who still foment discrimination against gay people.
And every time I hear another fear-mongering "news" report on H1N1 and the vast over-reaction to it (several thousand people die from the flu annually, H1N1 or not) and how people with HIV were shunned by their communities, deserted by their families and died in fear, it makes me want to break something. And it makes me wonder …it makes me sad… to think of how things might have been different if the reaction when "Gay cancer" first appeared had been anything approaching the H1N1 hysteria.
Two Spirits
This documentary, reviewed in the most recent issue of White Crane is a MUST SEE.