So you’re calling again now.  And I’m actually picking up the phone and talking to you again.  Wow.  It’s been a while hasn’t it?  A while since I stopped returning your calls.  Because you voted one too many times for George Bush.  Because you didn’t seem to give a good goddamn how much slime the republicans threw into your gay friend’s face.  Because you didn’t seem to care one whit how hard they tried to make everyone hate people like me.  Hey…look at us.  We’re talking again!  So nice.  When we talk nowadays, it’s almost like old times.  But that’s the problem.

So once again I get to hear about your life.  What you’re up to.  All your successes.  All your disappointments.  That’s what friends do.  We share our lives with each other, the good times and the bad.  The highs and the lows.  Well…wait…except I’m suppose to hide a part of my life from you aren’t I?  And not a small part either.  Not judging from how often you talk about that part of yours.  Your love life that is.  Still single are we?  Yeah.  I know the feeling.  I know a lot about being single, and lonely that you will never know.  But then, you don’t want to know. 

That was always the bargain wasn’t it old friend?  I get to hear about your girlfriend problems.  I get to hear about the latest cute new girl you’re seeing nowadays.  I get to hear about how the two of you got it on.  I get to hear about how great you felt afterward.  Hey, I know the feeling!  But you’d rather I didn’t tell you that I suppose.  Feels great at our age doesn’t it though.  We’re both getting old now aren’t we?  Not quite the sexy young guys we used to be back in the day.  Except I was never allowed to think of myself that way, even back then.  Even back when I was young and cute and could have made something of it.  I wasn’t allowed to be that.  Cute.  Sexy.  Desirable.  I had to keep it under wraps.  I had to play it low key.  You didn’t want to hear about my struggles with the dating and mating game.  You didn’t even want to know I was interested in any of that.  Because that meant bringing up the fact of my sexuality.  Yeah…yeah…I know…  You’re Not Gay.  I got that then.  I get it now.  What I didn’t really get back then was that I wasn’t allowed to be gay either. 

Oh I could be gay…Theoretically.  I could be gay as some abstract concept you could put in some safe place in the back of your mind.  I could be the oddball artistic little nerd nobody expected to date girls for some unspoken reason.  I could be that.  I could be out of the closet, so long as I kept being out of the closet in the closet.  That was always how our friendship worked.

And I went along with it.  Because you didn’t have anti-gay prejudices.  You were just…misinformed.  Like I was.  I knew how that worked.  They taught me the same lies about homosexuals they taught you.  I knew this.  I knew from firsthand experience how it was to live with all the stereotypes in my head that you have in yours.  The mincing faggot.  The swishing queer.  The lurking child molester.  The dangerous sexual pervert, waiting in the men’s rooms…in the bushes.  Cocksuckers.  Ass fuckers.  I laughed at all the same fag jokes you did all through grade school.  They were fairies.  They were queers.  They were homos.  I understood this the same as the rest of you guys.  And then puberty came along and tapped me on the shoulder.  It took a while…you can appreciate why…but one day I finally came to understand that I was gay myself.  Kinda gave me a whole new perspective on the subject, that.

I came out to myself when I was 17.  That was back in 1971.  And because the guy I fell in love with was so decent and good hearted, because I saw that what I had fallen in love with was the person, not just any random male body, I realized that there was nothing wrong with me.  In that rush of first love I learned that what I had been taught about homosexuals was a load of horseshit.  The fact of my homosexuality was there, staring me in the face, every time I laid eyes on the guy I was in love with.  Making my heart beat.  Making my knees tremble.  Putting knots in my stomach and sweat on my brow.  It was terrifying.  It was wonderful.  First love is like that.  And there I was, feeling that for another guy.  Yet I knew I was none of the things I had been taught that homosexuals were.  And because of that, I was able to accept it.  I am a homosexual.  But I’m still me.  I knew both of those things were true.  So I never hated myself.  Because of him.  Because of how it hit me in just that way.  I was in love, and it was wonderful.  And nobody was happy for me.

Mom would have cried her heart out.  The preacher in our church would have warned me direly that God considered homosexuality an abomination and I was going to hell.  Maybe everyone in my life would turn against me.  I could go to jail.  That’s not what usually happens to a young guy, who wakes up one day to find he’s in love.  But I grew up in a world where the radios played rock and roll love songs about young guys and girls in love, and locker rooms echoed with jokes about homos who suck cock.

It’s a pure miracle I didn’t hate myself, but I didn’t.  I was in love.  But looking back I never really felt good about myself either.  How could I, when I still heard all the fag jokes I used to laugh at?  How could I, when could still hear our gym teachers telling us in Sex Ed that homosexuals were dangerous, deranged, sexual psychopaths who raped children and killed the people they had sex with?  How could I feel good about myself, when from Every…Fucking…Direction…I was being told that homosexuals were ridiculous, pathetic, repulsive, and that same-sex love was a sick parody of the real thing. 

Oh…I had pride.  I was chock full of gay pride.  I felt good about myself In Theory.  But you don’t come of age in a world that is constantly screaming in your face that you’re a sick, twisted pervert without being wounded somehow, somewhere.  I remember sitting in a movie theater watching "Something For Everyone" with my straight friends, and when the evil homosexual villain at the center of the story embraced and kissed the naive countess’s son, the entire theater erupted in a collective Ewwwwwwww!  That character was an evil murdering, blackmailing manipulating bastard, but it was that kiss that made the audience’s gorge rise.  I can still hear it to this day.  Ewwwwwwwwwwww!  It was spontaneous.  It filled the theater.  That was the world I grew up in.  How was I supposed to see my love life as anything but completely disgusting to everyone? 

How then, was I supposed to see myself as desirable? 

How especially, when I had so many straight friends, male and female, who kept signaling to me…tactfully of course…that they shared the audience’s disgust at my sexuality.  It took a while, and a lot of sweating…but I finally began to come out to my friends shortly after that first high school crush.  Do you remember when I came out to you?  I have a question: Have you ever sat down and pictured your friend Bruce sitting in one of those Sex Ed classes…the ones we all had back then…while his teachers taught him and everyone sitting in that class around him, that homosexuals were sick, sexually twisted, mentally ill deviants who raped children, lurked around public toilets and killed the people they had sex with?  Picture it now then, because that’s what happened to me.  I sat through it all only to discover years later that I was one of the people they were talking about.  Now recall again that moment when I came out to you.  Maybe you noticed how white my knuckles were.

But it seemed to go well.  You said it was okay.  You said it didn’t matter. I was still your friend.  I was so relieved…so happy.  My friends were cool!

Er…as long as I kept it low key.  But that was okay.  I had to know reconciling your mental image of me with the stereotypes we were all fed wasn’t going to happen overnight.  I could be patient.  I had to be.  You were my friend.  I came out to you and you didn’t walk off in disgust.  I figured I was the luckiest guy in the world to have friends like you.  Of course you were a little nervous about the whole thing.  Good god I was terrified!  I could cut you some slack.  Jeeze.  I figured once you saw that I wasn’t any of that crap we were all taught that homosexuals were, you’d treat me just like anyone else. 

But that never happened did it?  At least not with you.  And let it be said you weren’t the only straight friend of mine who never got over it.  Some did.  But only some.  And for the rest who didn’t, I ended up doing something no one should ever have to do: I stifled my human need for love and companionship, so you wouldn’t have to deal with it.  I put a pillow over it and suffocated it.  I did that because I thought it was for the best while I tried to coax you out of your…well…your cheapshit prejudices.

So there we are…two young men in the prime of our lives…and you’re talking about how messed up it is that your new girlfriend broke up with you.  And I nod my head and start talking about how much I miss the guy I fell in love with back in high school.  WHOOPS!  Can’t talk about that because it reminds you that Bruce likes having sex with guys.  So let’s change the subject.  So how about that movie we saw last week?  Great flick wasn’t it?  And…damn…the lead actress was smokin hot!  I guess…but I kinda liked that cute guy who played the part of…  WHOOPS!  Can’t talk about that because it reminds you that Bruce likes to look at guy’s bodies the way you like to look at girl’s.  So let’s change the subject.  How about we get something to eat and listen to some tunes?  I have some OJ in the fridge…  None for me thanks…I’m boycotting Orange Juice.  Huh?  Orange Juice?  What for?  Well Anita Bryant…  WHOOPS!

Damn boy…why is it that gays always want to talk about sex?

But Forcing the issue would just be too hardassed of me, too demanding.  We were all victims of the same homophobic crap we were taught.  Those were the excuses I kept making for you, whenever you signaled to me in some unspoken way that the thought of Bruce having a boyfriend of his own was a tad…repellent.  A bit Disgusting.  Uhm…Gross.  All that time I kept being patent with you, and all that time you were teaching me to accept the fact that I was disgusting.  Friend.

So I went out into the world back then, and tried to find a lover, knowing deep down inside that the sight of two males in love was a repulsive thing to…well…to just about everyone…Ewwwwwwwww!  Most of my friends included.  So I went into the world looking for love, understanding that same-sex love was utterly gross to most people.  Disgusting.  Sick.  Ugly.  Had you told me that in so many words I’d have walked away from you.  Instead, you fed me the poison slowly, one drop at a time, one sour look at a time, one change of the subject at a time.  I had to be careful.  I had to be respectful of your sensitivities.  And every time I approached a beautiful guy, someone who attracted me, someone decent, and smart, and good-hearted, someone who made my heart skip a beat, I approached them not as a potential lover, but the way I’d been conditioned to behave.  By my friends.  By you.  Carefully.  Trying hard not to shock and offend.

And now I’m 55 years old, and still single.

In my 30s, when the fear began to creep into my heart that I might not find someone to love after all, I began to pour myself into a series of charcoal and ink drawings, and a couple oil paintings, of young male couples in love.  I put everything I had, everything I wanted to say at that point in my life, about love and desire and finding your heart’s desire in another’s smile, into those drawings and paintings.  Nothing even vaguely pornographic, they were about love, but also about being in love body and soul.  All my unfulfilled yearnings, all my hopes and dreams.  I put them down on paper and canvas.  I showed a couple of them to you…or tried to…once.  You took one look and I could see in your eyes that it was as if I’d shown you gay pornography.  No…worse then that.  Pornography you might have just laughed at.  But this was two guys in love and that completely squicked you out.  So I didn’t show you the rest.

I had one drawing…I titled it "Moment of Recognition"…of two young guys sharing a look…that was all, just a look, as they briefly, lightly, touched hands while having a quiet moment alone.  They weren’t even actually holding hands…just fingers lightly touching…eyes looking into eyes…a slightly astonished look on their faces…the moment before the smile…  I wanted to capture that look in their faces, that hushed sudden timeless moment in time, when they both realize that they’re in love.  I remember that moment.  By then I’d had it more then once.  It’s the most wonderful thing in the world.  It’s the most wonderful part of being alive.  And I was really happy with what I was able to get on the artboard.  I thought I’d captured it.  And I guess I did, because it sure got a reaction.  I showed it to another straight friend and I could swear I saw the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  "What’s that about?" he asked, in a very perturbed voice.  But he knew damn well what it was about.

So I told myself to be patient, and in the process let the wound dig itself deeper and deeper into me.  I knew the beauty and sacredness of love wasn’t denied to same-sex lovers too.  I knew that.  Intellectually.  Rationally.  But your disgust was like a ball and chain around my heart, allowing it to soar only so far.  I eventually stopped drawing.  For nearly a decade and a half I did not pick up my tools again.  I put down my cameras too.  I just didn’t want to deal with my feelings anymore.  I stopped creating artwork altogether.  That’s another landscape of my life that should have more in it then it does.  Friend.

So now you’re calling again.  So now I’m picking up the phone again and talking to you.  It’s almost like old times isn’t it?  But that’s the problem, and I am over being the "some" in "some of my best friends are…".

The other day you phoned and shortly into the conversation you told me about that cute next door neighbor.  The one who made mad love to you one night, and then the next didn’t want you calling her.  The one who you later found out was playing you against her old boyfriend that she’s still mad at, but still seeing.  I got the whole story, listened supportively, fell back into the old routine of being a friend.  Yes, says I…I know how it is to be jerked around by a young cutie.  There is this really cute guy guy who moved in just a few doors down from me, who gives me this hot and cold routine…one moment he’s all flirty, the next he’s treating me like an old troll…  But you didn’t want to hear about that, and quickly changed the subject.

You wonder why I don’t call?  I am 55 years old now, single, alone, and sick with loneliness, and one thing I bitterly regret is spending so many of the precious moments of the prime of my life with people who thought there was something wrong with me.

I came out to myself back in 1971 and actually managed to feel good about myself afterward.  Looking back, that was a miracle.  That was three years before the APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.  But I was stupid.  I trusted in some of the people in my life, just a tad too much.  The kind of friendship you offered me was the one poison I didn’t know any better not to drink.  I came of age in a world that thought I was the most disgusting thing ever.  I didn’t need friends telling me to accept that.  I needed friends to tell me that I was beautiful, desirable, and just as deserving of love as anyone else.  I look at the pictures taken of me back then and I cannot believe that really cute gay kid never found a boyfriend.  But he never did.  And that was okay with you.  My friend.

You want to know why I don’t call anymore?  There’s a vast and empty wasteland in my heart where love should have been, and one of the signposts pointing to it has your name on it.  

I’m not laying it entirely at your doorstep.  There were larger forces in the culture we both lived in, grew up in, working hard to insure that no gay person ever knew what it was to be loved.  But you said I was your friend.  So I stifled that part of me.  Not just for you, but for the others too.  The others who couldn’t handle it.  And now…I’m 55 years old and I don’t know how to set it free.  That was something I was supposed to learn decades ago, and I never did.  And now here I am.  Alone in my little Baltimore rowhouse.  Talking to you on the phone.  Listening while you tell me about your latest heartache.  Old friend.

Via Atrios…  Matthew Yglesias notices something…

Ed Kilgore has a very interesting post on a new trend sweeping conservative politics in Dixie—“sovereignty resolutions” that appear to assert states’ rights to unilaterally invalidate federal action, a doctrine last seen in the hands of John C. Calhoun, the great antebellum theorist of white supremacy.

At any rate, while looking at Wikipedia for a Calhoun image, I saw this list of places named after John Calhoun. It’s a long list! And while I suppose I would hesitate to specifically place the blame for any current problems in American society on the fact that there are all these towns and counties and streets named after the guy, it is always striking for a historically informed northerner to see how thoroughly un-disavowed the legacy of white supremacy is in southern official culture. Get on 395 in DC and take the bridge across the Potomac, exiting onto Route 1, and you’ll find yourself on Jefferson Davis Highway. Yes. A highway named after the political leader of a rebellion against the duly constituted government of the United States of America, founded on the principle that democracy was less important than the right of white people to own black people. Right there on signs and everything.

Travel in the South much?  As Atrios said, Nobody could have predicted that the election of an African-American president would cause Southern states to start declaring their independence. 

Go ahead and laugh as you whistle past the civil war graveyard.  Calhoun was instrumental in getting the southern states of his time to pass similar nullification resolutions.  It was the first rumbling of the ocean of bloodshed to come.  That war killed more Americans then all our other wars combined.  And far too many leaders in the South today think they’re still living in the Confederate States of America, and that it would be a glorious thing to rise again.  Better millions of Americans die, better The United States of America is buried under a mountain of wreckage, then all Americans can live together peaceably, as equals, with liberty and justice for all.

If it happens here again, it will be more Sarajevo then Gettysburg.

Andrew Sullivan noted a few days ago, a letter Stephen Fry addressed to his 16-year-old self…

Oh, lord love you, Stephen. How I admire your arrogance and rage and misery. How pure and righteous they are and how passionately storm-drenched was your adolescence. How filled with true feeling, fury, despair, joy, anxiety, shame, pride and above all, supremely above all, how overpowered it was by love. My eyes fill with tears just to think of you. Of me. Tears splash on to my keyboard now. I am perhaps happier now than I have ever been and yet I cannot but recognize that I would trade all that I am to be you, the eternally unhappy, nervous, wild, wondering and despairing 16-year-old Stephen: angry, angst-ridden and awkward but alive. Because you know how to feel, and knowing how to feel is more important than how you feel. Deadness of soul is the only unpardonable crime, and if there is one thing happiness can do it is mask deadness of soul.

Sullivan adds his own reaction to the film, History Boys…

A line it from the lonely gay schoolboy was almost too much to hear: "I’m Jewish. I’m homosexual. And I’m in Sheffield …  I’m fucked." Somewhere in my mind in those teenage years was a similar refrain: "I’m Catholic. I’m homosexual. And I’m in East Grinstead … I’m fucked."

But I wasn’t fucked, of course. And not-to-be-fucked, not to turn into the tragic homosexual figure, memorizing "Brief Encounter," constantly chasing unrequited love, seeking refuge in the great worlds of Hardy or Larkin or Auden as a substitute for life: that was my goal.

See…I didn’t make that my goal.  I just assumed it wouldn’t happen to me, because I didn’t buy into all the crap I was told about homosexuality.

That was a mistake.  It was nearly impossible to grow up in that world, and no absorb some of its contempt for gay people.  And it did its work on me all the same I realize now.  Which is what makes it a good idea for gay folk to write these sorts of things…these bear your soul to the world letters.  It seems very self absorbed, but it isn’t necessarily.  It can be useful, not just for making peace with your own past, but also as a kind of message in a bottle to other generations in other times. 

Gay kids have very little to no blood connection to past generations.  You kind-of pop up in your family as gay, and everyone else isn’t.  Maybe if you’re lucky you have a kind gay older uncle or aunt who can tell you a thing or two about what it was like for them, how to protect yourself from the tribulations they faced, and work toward the better world for us all.  But more likely if you do have older gay relatives they are terrified to be seen as being too interested in you, lest they be accused of pedophilia.  So you find yourself disconnected from the past, other then as history.  And that history is still mostly being taught to each new generation of gay kids, by heterosexuals. Some gay-friendly, some not.  We need to tell each other our own stories, in our own words.

So a letter to your younger gay self can be useful, not just to you, but to others who need to know what it was like for those of us in the previous generation.  So that, hopefully, no gay kid will have to grow up in a world ever again, where everywhere you turn, literally, someone is putting a knife into your heart…telling you that you are pathetic…ridiculous…grotesque…sick.

I’ve had a letter to my younger self percolating somewhere inside of me for quite a long time now, so it’s probably time to get it out of me.  But I have a few other letters to post before I get around to The Kid I Was.  I’m going to start, with a Letter To A Straight Friend.  I have some others that need writing too.  And then I’ll write to Bruce.  There’s a lot I’d have liked to tell him.

[Edited a tad…]

Via Digby…  Le Dance Pathetique…as choreographed by Joe The Plumber…

Q: In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

Un…

Joe The Pumber: At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing.

Deux…

I personally still think it’s wrong.

Trois…

People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer.

Quatre…

Queer means strange and unusual.

Cinq…

It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that.

Six…

You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for.

Sept…

Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins.

Huit…

I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual.

Neuf…

And, I mean, they know where I stand…

Dix…

…and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children.

Onze…

But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

Le Curtian…Applaus a Voux…

So I get to work, and immediately after settling into my office, go wash my hands before I touch anything on my desk.  I mean…since I’ve had to touch all the door knobs on the way to my desk.  And as I’m washing, I’m thinking…

Remember Y2K?  Remember how it turned out to be no big deal after all.  That wasn’t because it wasn’t any big deal.  It actually was.  If nothing had been done, guarantee you nothing would have worked by the time the calendar rolled over to the year 2000.  Actually, things would have begun to fail Much sooner, since all the programs that calculate things like morgages and car loans and credit card exparation dates would have begun to fail years ahead of Y2K.  But never mind that.  If nothing had been fixed, nothing would have worked.  We computer professionals took the warnings seriously, and got to work, and Fixed The Problem.  And when the magic night came along, it wasn’t much of a problem after all.  Thanks to us.  And what did we get for our trouble?  A lot of grief about how we’d scared the whole damn world for nothing.

Now it’s Swine Flu.  Excuse me…Industrial…Pig Farm…Flu.   Everybody’s gotten the message.  A Dangerous Flu Is Spreading…  Take Precautions…  Be Alert…  Good Hygiene Is The Best Defense…  Suppose it works.  Suppose that enough people take the message about good hygiene seriously enough, and government health agencies take the threat seriously enough, that this flu does not spread so rapidly, and not so many people die of it.  Will we all say afterward that the threat was overblown?

Yeah…probably…

Via Talking Points Memo…

Steele: Moderates Are Welcome To Join GOP — But Not To Change It

Michael Steele has an interesting message for moderates, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. During a news conference at the Wisconsin GOP convention on Friday, Steele said moderates are welcome to join the Republican Party — but not to change it.

"All you moderates out there, y’all come. I mean, that’s the message," Steele said. "The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front."

But, he added: "Understand that when you come into someone’s house, you’re not looking to change it. You come in because that’s the place you want to be."

Get it moderates?  This is not Your house…it’s Our house…

Via Slashdot…  This scanned across my computer screen today…

The Manga Guide To Databases

Princess Ruruna, of the Kingdom of Kod, has a problem. Her parents, the King and Queen, have left to travel abroad. Ruruna has been left to manage the nations fruit business. Much is at stake, Kod is known as "The Country of Fruit." Ruruna is not happy though, as she is swamped by paperwork and information overload. A mysterious book, sent by her father, contains Tico the fairy. Tico, and the supernatural book are going to help Princess Ruruna solve her problems with the power of the database. This is the setting for all that takes place in The Manga Guide to Databases. If you are like me and learned things like normalization and set operations from a rather dry text book, you may be quite entertained by the contents of this book. If you would like to teach others about creating and using relational databases and you want it to be fun, this book may be exactly what you need.

Er…  Right.  It’s Monday morning…it’s gray and rainy and chilly just like it’s been now for days and days…  I’m tired, I’m about to go nuts with all this damn rain all the damn time…and this pops up on my computer screen.  A Manga.  About a princess.  In the Country of Fruit.  Suffering from information overload.  Swamped with database problems.  Rescued in the nick of time by Tico The Fairy.  I had to stare at this for a few seconds while my brain kept insisting that I was going to wake up any moment now and Monday would begin for real this time…

If this post is confusing you…don’t worry.  There’s an in-joke staring me in the face that I just can’t even think about clarifying here.

Via Slashdot…  Behold…the Open Document Format that Microsoft Rammed through the international standards committee…

Office 2007SP2 ODF Interoperability Very Bad

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the are-you-really-surprised dept.

 

David Gerard writes "Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 claims support for ODF 1.1. With hard work and careful thinking, they have successfully achieved technical compliance but zero interoperability! MSO 2007sp2 won’t read ODF 1.1 from any other existing application, and its ODF is only readable by the CleverAge plugin. The post goes into detail as to how it manages this so thoroughly."

ODF: The open standard file format that only Microsoft applications can use…

[Update…] In comments Jonathan Allen points out that ODF is the Oasis Group open document standard, not Microsoft’s, which is OpenXML.  I was confusing the two, and the point of the Slashdot post.  This isn’t about Microsoft’s own proprietary open standard.  It’s about them applying their usual Embrace, Extend and Extinguish tactic on ODF.  Here’s some of the Slashdot commentary…

If it achieves 100% technical compliance with the standard, but zero interoperability, this is certainly a problem with the standard itself.

And the problem in this case is the missing formula specification. It’s not in ODF 1.1, and ODF 1.2 is still a draft. While this is Microsoft and we all "know" that this was intentional, ODF is what should be fixed first. We were all bashing OOXML specifications, but ODF 1.1’s far from perfect, as we can see.

…

That is, curiously, not quite true. ODF 1.1 doesn’t fully specify formulas, but it does specify the general syntax that should be used for them, and Microsoft seems to have ignored this. (Also, in practice, the major spreadsheets are quite similar in terms of what expressions they accept in formulas. This makes it relatively simple to convert between MS Office formulas and OpenOffice.org ones, which are what most ODF-based apps use.)

…

The irony here is that the formula language used by OpenOffice (and by other vendors) is based on that used by Excel, which itself was not fully documented when OpenOffice implemented it. So an argument, by Microsoft, not to support that language because it is not documented is rather hypocritical. Excel supports 1-2-3 files and formulas and legacy Excel versions (back to Excel 4.0) neither of which have standardized formula languages. Why are these supported? Also, the fact that the Microsoft/CleverAge add-in correctly reads and writes the legacy ODF formula syntax shows not only that it can be done, but that Microsoft already has the code to do it. The inexplicably thing is why that code never made it into Excel 2007 SP2.

Just look at this.  They’re in complete technical compliance, and yet if you read an ODF file format spreadsheet into Excel and then write it back out again it’s now locked utterly into MS Office’s specific implementation of ODF.  You can no longer read it back into any other spreadsheet program that supports ODF, because it can’t read Microsoft’s ODF formula implementation.

They just never stop, do they?  I started out as a Microsoft platforms developer.  Now I work on software that runs on many different platforms and swear to God I will never again be a Microsoft only developer.  I will not help them betray the promise of the personal computer.  I will not help them put handcuffs on the whole goddamned world just because that’s their business model.

This may strike some of you, or most of you as odd…but most of my sexy guy sketches start with my seeing something aimed more at young heterosexual males…some pin-up photo of a sexy woman…and I’ll find myself thinking Hey…that’s a nice pose…but I’d rather see a guy in that photo… 

The young pirate I did some months ago was actually one of those little pirate statuettes you find for sale at some seaside resorts…a sexy female pirate being served a jug of ale by a little monkey.  I bought the statuette and when I got it home did several quick sketches, recasting her as a young man, and adding some background detail and giving him a slightly more direct and challenging look.  I guess you could say I butched him up a tad…but only a tad.  I was reaching for a sense where he’s beautiful and sexy but not in a passive way, such as I often see in most male heterosexual skin magazines.  I’m trying to thread a middle ground between the hyper-masculine art I see in a lot of gay magazines and the hyper-feminine stuff I see in straight boy magazines. 

It seems the gay sensual archetype here in the U.S. is the hunk.  I’m really not into that.  But I’m not really into uber twink either.  There is very little I find myself responding to in any of the gay magazines or the online photo galleries.  I’m not into porn.  Porn is obvious.  I want to be teased.  I like the sensual and beautiful over graphic sexuality.  And no…this isn’t just a middle aged guy loosing his interest.  I’ve always been like this.  In a world that must seem to the pulpit thumpers like it’s swimming in sex, there is very little in it I actually like.  I don’t see that as my being particularly finicky.  I’m an artist.  I don’t like saying that about myself because it sounds so damn pretentious, but there it is.  I spend a lot of time with my feelings…alone at my drafting table, or out and about with one of my cameras.  I know perfectly well what turns me on and it’s not that I have a sexually narrow bandwidth, it’s that the culture I live in does not like to admit that men can be beautiful and sexy that particular way.  Most of my skin magazines are Asian and that’s not because I have a thing necessarily for Asians, but because Asian cultures seem more willing to admit that males can be beautiful and sexy in a way that isn’t hunk.

There are males like that everywhere.  But here in the U.S. they have to dress like slobs or butch up or they catch grief from other U.S. males.  Once upon a time, back in the 70s and early 80s, sexy lean and beautiful guys could wear their jeans tight and low and their hair long and their cut-offs high and nobody gave it a second thought.  That was a great time to be a young gay man I’m here to tell you.  But then as the gay rights movement grew and became more vocal, heterosexual males experienced a kind of gay panic and then those gawd awful baggy pants and swimsuits began to appear and all the sexy beautiful males went into hiding, lest someone think they were gay.  Meanwhile, gay males, after being told for generations that they were pathetic mincing swishy faggots, began to reclaim maleness for themselves.  That’s a good thing, but alas it’s become too much of a good thing.  At least for me.

So when I want to spend some sexy time at the drawing board, I find myself inspired more by straight boy pin-up girls then by anything I see in the gay press or online on the gay websites.  It’s weird I guess, but except for the passivity I usually see in it, I find myself drawn more to that then to explicitly gay stuff.  I just mentally switch the gender of the subject a lot.  I find myself looking at something that is very nice, but would be greatly improved by adding a few ‘Y’ chromosomes.  But not too many. 

The sketch in the previous post started out as a photo of a gay guy in low riser jeans with thong straps rising up slightly in a very sexy way from the pant waist.  I thought that was a good idea, but I didn’t like his pose and he was a tad too muscular for my taste.  I like muscle…I like the hardness of the male body…but there are limits.  Then I saw another photo of a woman in a very tiny bikini and a hat.  She was looking at the camera in a pouty pin-up girl kind of way.  I took her pose and the idea of the low risers and thong straps and tried to combine the two.  I made the pose a tad more assertive and changed the facial expression from pouty pin-up girl to more introspective and sensual male.

I do most of my pencil work these days on layout paper because it’s easier to erase and re-draw and I am a hunt and peck kind of draftsman, not a professional by any means.  I am completely self taught and it probably shows.  When it’s sexy time at the drafting table my goal is making myself all hot and bothered.  It isn’t like I have anyone in my life to do that to me.  So I do it to myself.  I find that it’s often the simplest strokes of the pencil that can have the most dramatic results.  The concentration level is intense…almost trance like…while I’m working with the pencil.  That logical analytical side of my brain is working on the mechanics of drawing, and at the same time it is dispassionately watching the libido.  I draw to make my libido go…Damn!  Goddamn! 

Beats sitting alone in a bar pondering the fact that Facebook is feeding me ads for Mature Gay Dating now.  I would love to find a nice, good looking, good-hearted gay guy about my own age to date.   As long as he wasn’t mature.

[Edited a tad…]

It rained practically the entire weekend here in Baltimore, and I was able to get very little yard work done.  It’s just been rain rain rain rain rain here.  Especially today.  Just steady gray sky rain all friggin day long.  Foo.

So what’s a single, lonely gay guy to do on a rainy day?  A few indoor repairs I suppose.  Some chores.  Call my ex-boyfriend and mope around the house afterward…  Do some filing I’d put off…  

Oh…I know…I know…!  I can draw some pencil sketches of guys who wear hats…

I’ve always wanted a hat like that…

Andrew Sullivan updates his post on Virginia Foxx and Matthew Shepard…

I should be clear: I do not for a minute believe that the bigotry behind the Matthew Shepard murder was a hoax. I think it was murkier and more complicated – i.e. more human – than some want it to be. Of course, if you believe that his murderers deserved the maximum sentence because they brutally murdered someone, and not because they were meth-fueled bigots, it doesn’t matter. I want the same laws against the same acts enforced equally on everyone. If police don’t enforce the law equally, get on their case. But leave the laws alone.

Okay…point taken and granted.  He’s not saying hate had nothing to do with the murder, which is Exactly what the kook pews are saying.  As to his horribly misinformed attitude about anti-lynching laws hate crime laws, I’ll leave that argument for another time.  But this business that the murder of Matthew Shepard was "murkier and more complicated" then it at first appeared is a load of horseshit.

In his confession to DeBree, McKinney had denied using meth the day of the murder, and while McKinney had been arrested too late for the police to confirm this through blood testing, DeBree felt certain that McKinney had for once told the truth.  Obviously it’s unsurprising that the lead investigator would disagree with the defense, but DeBree had some compelling reasons on his side.  "There’s no way" it was a meth crime, DeBree argued, still passionate about the issue when I met him nearly six months after the trial had ended.  No evidence of recent drug use was "found in a search of their residences.  There was no evidence in the truck.  From everything we were able to investigate, the last time they would have done meth would have been two to three weeks previous to that night.  What the defense attempted to do was a bluff."  Meth crimes do have hallmarks.  One, "Overkill," certainly seems to describe what happened to Matt, but no others so seamlessly fit that night: "A meth crime is going to be a quick attack," DeBree pointed out.  "It’s going to be a manic attack…  No.  This was a sustained event.  And somebody that’s high on meth is not going to be targeting and zeroing in on a head, and deliver the blows that they did in the way that they did," with such precision.  "Consistently it was targeted, and even if you’re drunk, you’re going to have a tough time trying to keep your target.  No.  There’s absolutely no involvement with drugs."

Beth Loffreda,  Loosing Matt Shepard.  pg 133 – 134

A week after we met in his office, Rob [DeBree] took me to the crime scene.  As we drove out to the fence in a Sheriff’s Office SUV, he stopped in mid-sentence by the Wal-Mart"  "Here’s where it began," he told me and gestured in imitation of McKinney striking Matt.  We restart the conversation, but he’s made his point: the drive to the fence seems unimaginably long.  It’s not far – no more then a mile or two – but the rutted dirt road they turned on to makes for extremely slow driving.  When I say something to Rob about how long it takes, he agrees.  "They were coming here to finish him."  On that dirt track, it is hard to believe the defense attorney’s claims that the two killers had been drunk or high on drugs or crazed by homosexual panic.  It just takes too long to get to the fence…

Beth Loffreda,  Loosing Matt Shepard.  pg 155 – 156

"I have never worked a homicide with this much evidence," Rob says, all these months later a bit of wonder still bleeding into his voice.  "It was like a case of God giving it to us.  I’m not kidding.  The whole way it broke down from the beginning to the end – it was like, here it is, boys: work it.  It’s almost like it pissed off God, and he says, oh well, come here, let me walk you over here, walk you over there, pick up all this, pick up all that.  It was just a gift.

Beth Loffreda,  Loosing Matt Shepard.  pg 157

There is more.  Much, much more.  But that last paragraph I quoted pretty much sums it up.  There is absolutely nothing murky or mysterious about the death of Matthew Shepard.  It is one of the most crystal clear examples of purely venomous anti-gay murder in the record.  They spent time torturing that kid.  That is not hyperbole, it is the one overwhelming fact at the heart of what happened.  That, and that they made an effort to take him where they did.  Whatever their intent when they walked into that bar that night, when they walk out of it with that kid, they were about torturing and killing a homosexual.

The only confusion regarding this case, is what has been deliberately and maliciously injected into the national conversation about it by the religious right. And to understand why they’ve been so vehement about denying that anti-gay hate was the root of it, you have to consider not only the political context of their opposition to hate crime laws, but the context in which Shepard’s death came to light.

What happened was that Shepard’s death brought to a grinding halt, their brand new nationwide 600,000 dollar anti-gay ad campaign.  That summer, starting with a full page ad in the New York Times that proclaimed "I’m Living Proof That The Truth Can Set You Free", a group called "Truth In Love" sponsored by fifteen arch right anti-gay groups began a national campaign to roll back the gains gay activists had won, using ex-gay therapy as their ruse, not to talk about curing homosexuality, but to demonize homosexual people.  Wayne Besen in his book, Anything But Straight, documents the brutality of that campaign.  Behind the smiling faces of people who were now free, free at last from the loathsome taint of homosexuality, the campaign was peppered with lies about gay recruitment in schools, child molestation, the spread of AIDS, and how homosexuality leads to drugs, disease, and death and many biblical condemnations of homosexuality.  Don Wildmon, whose group was one of the sponsors, was busy telling people that…

Since homosexuals cannot reproduce, the only way for them to "breed" is to RECRUIT!"

In the midst of this propaganda onslaught, comes the news that a gay college student was practically crucified on a deer fence in Wyoming…that the kid who found his dying body thought a first that it was a scarecrow.  And then a couple days later, news that Fort Collins Colorado fraternity revelers during their homecoming parade, entered a float that bore a scarecrow with a sign that read "I’m gay"  And disgust swept across the nation.  The ad campaign now seemed less an outreach to homosexuals in the public mind, and more like what it really was, an attack on their lives.

Almost Immediately the religious right set about blaming Shepard for his own death.  It’s not hard to understand why.  They deliberately created the climate of hate toward gay people that made that both kid’s death and the mockery of it in Fort Collins not merely inevitable, but intentional.  Desired.  The homosexual monster must be feared.  The homosexual monster must be eliminated from our midst.  The very last thing they wanted was that the climate of hate would be held to account…that terrorizing homosexuals would be considered criminal. 

For generations the act of beating, and even murdering, homosexuals was considered less a crime and more a distasteful consequence of homosexuality in society.  Randy Shilts related how a young gay man who was raped sought medical help, telling a doctor what happened, only to have the doctor look at him and say "Well you’re a homosexual aren’t you?"  Matthew Shepard put a human face on all that…the face of anyone’s kid…and suddenly it seemed as if for once beating and killing a homosexual wouldn’t just be swept under the rug as par for the course…no more then what you got, and probably deserved if you were a homosexual.  Instead, the nation was appalled at what happened to that kid.

And that made the religious right livid.

They began Immediately to smear and slime that poor kid’s memory.  What ABC News and 20/20 did by taking that smear campaign and elevating it to the level of "respectable journalism" is unforgivable.  ABC News ground another cigarette into a dead gay kid’s body so they could get some ratings.  At least the hatred of Fred Phelps is genuine.

There is nothing murky about what happened to Matthew Shepard.  Nothing.  The evidence leaves absolutely no doubt that a 112 pound gay college student was tortured and murdered by two thugs because they thought homosexuals were human garbage and their contempt for them justified anything they did to that kid that night.  They had Fun.  They enjoyed themselves.  Anyone who cites that 20/20 hit piece is in about the same category as William Bennett, citing Paul Cameron on the shortened lifespan of homosexuals.  You are dispensing bullshit that even Baghdad Bob would laugh at.

"I have never worked a homicide with this much evidence," Rob says, all these months later a bit of wonder still bleeding into his voice.  "It was like a case of God giving it to us.  I’m not kidding.  The whole way it broke down from the beginning to the end – it was like, here it is, boys: work it.  It’s almost like it pissed off God, and he says, oh well, come here, let me walk you over here, walk you over there, pick up all this, pick up all that.  It was just a gift.

Take a wee stroll around that lonely prairie grass field of evidence sometime.  It’ll rip your comfortable 20/20 myths…and then your heart…to crying pieces.

The footprints and the tire tracks were perfectly etched; Matt’s watch, his student ID, and a quarter were laid out by the fence like props.  All that told DeBree a pretty clear story about what had happened there, including something I’d never heard in all the reporting of the crime – that Matt had made a run for it that night.  First, he had desperately "tried to stay in the truck," Rob believes.  Once out, he tried to escape.  "Henderson had made a statement to Chasity Pasley that she told us about, that Matt was able to break free and tried to run.  And according to what we were able to see at the crime scene, we could pretty well put that together.  His wristwatch was located twenty-three feet or so from where he was tied up, and I think that’s essentially what he was trying to do, was just to run.  He was tackled down; then he was drug over to the fence and tied by Henderson."

Beth Loffreda,  Loosing Matt Shepard.  pg 156-157

I see Andrew Sullivan is still trying to make that 20/20 hit piece on Matthew Shepard into something it isn’t…namely journalism…

I don’t doubt that homophobia fueled the disgusting murder. But I am unconvinced it was the sole motive. ABC’s 20/20 report brought some serious facts to the table – most specifically the crystal meth binge that the killers had been on, and the original motive being possibly robbery of someone McKinney knew casually

No…No…and, No…

To: Andrew Sullivan
From: Bruce Garrett
Subject: What Facts?

You’re still trying to make that 20/20 episode into something it isn’t…a serious exploration of the circumstances of Matthew Shepard’s death.  There is nothing confusing or mysterious about what happened that night.  It is in fact, one of the best documented cases of a gay bashing/murder, with that classic aspect of overkill that such murders almost always have.  Yeah…they robbed him.  But had be been heterosexual, a robbery would have been all that it was.

The facts are there, staring you in the face…you’re just not paying attention to them.  Question:  if McKinney and Shepard knew each other, then why did he ask Shepard if he could read his license plates?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/11/02/shepard/

Both sides agreed that McKinney committed the murder, with Custis actually using that legal term in his closing argument. The points of contention boiled down to whether the act was premeditated or the result of extreme intoxication.

Prosecutor Cal Rerucha alluded to testimony that McKinney was actually sober at the time of the killing, and focused on his final request for Shepard to read McKinney’s license plate as the most damning proof of premeditation — allegedly proving that McKinney intentionally killed Shepard to make sure he could never be a witness in a case against him.

If they knew each other, even casually, then this is pointless.  Shepard already can identify him.  But there it is. 

If you have any doubts about what was going on that night, I suggest you do what I did.  Go to Laramie, and drive the route Shepard’s killers took from the bar they picked him up at, to the fence where they beat him to the edge of death.  I have family in California and I regularly drive out to visit them because I love seeing America from the road.  One year I detoured to Laramie and just to see for myself.

Well you can’t get to the fence now from the road: there are signs warning you that it’s a private driveway now.  But you can take the drive from where the bar was to close enough to where the fence is and I am here to tell you that you won’t get halfway there before it becomes sickeningly clear that it may have started out as a robbery in the bar, but by the time the two of them got that 112 pound kid in the truck and started heading out of town it wasn’t that anymore.  They could have robbed him anywhere along that route pushed him out of the truck and gotten safely away.  Hell, they could have put a bullet in his head and dumped his body out in various spots along that route where nobody would likely have seen anything.  Drive the route late at night.  I did it one July, but doing it around the time of year of the killing would be even better, because the route would be even darker, the air much colder, the driver even less likely to see other people out there.  It is very clarifying. 

You go out of the downtown section…you drive for blocks…past the university…past the outlying convenience stores…a few fast food joints…some liquor stores…out to the edge of town and beyond.  Into the rolling sage.  Into the darkness.  I know why they turned off onto Pilot Peak Road now.  Pilot Peak was their last turn off before the Interstate.  They had to make that left, or they would have been on the Interstate and from there it was either drive west and back toward town or drive east for miles and miles to Happy Jack Road.  So they took the left onto Pilot Peak Road and drove back into that sub division as far as they could.  Into the darkness.  Where no one would see.  Where their handiwork wouldn’t be discovered for a long time.  They made an effort to take him where they did, and that only makes sense if they planned to beat the living daylights out of that poor kid, simply for being a homosexual, because he disgusted them.  Perhaps…perhaps…because they disgusted themselves, and now they had a queer they could take it out on.

I repeat: if McKinney and Shepard knew each other, then why did he ask Shepard if he could read his license plates?   Oh…and Doc O’Connor says they were never together in his limo.  And the detectives found no evidence of any kind of drug connection to the crime.  But who are you going to believe…the detectives or the killer’s friends?  All 20/20 did was take the drug saturated gossip of the friends of Shepard’s killers and elevate that to "serious questions" about the killing.  Their testimony is contradicted in so many ways by both the evidence and the testimony of the detectives that it’s impossible to see what 20/20 did as anything other then a hit piece. 

But if you have doubts, like I said, go there and drive that route for yourself.  Do it around the same time of night as Shepard’s killers kidnapped him.  Try to keep a picture in your mind of those two thugs with a 112 pound kid in their truck, driving that route, and all they have in mind is robbing him.  Trust me, it won’t last long.

—
Bruce Garrett
Baltimore, Maryland.

This isn’t rocket science…

Germany seriously challenged America’s dominance in the Preserved Food You Can’t Imagine Ever Taking Off The Shelf Even In Your Most Desperate Moments category with their mighty Cheeseburger In A Can…

Well I’m here to tell you we Americans, the people who gave the world SPAM, Individually Wrapped Slices Of Fake Cheese, Fake Potato Chips In A Can (we call them Pringles on this side of the pond) and Cheese Puffs, the snack food you can put in your will, just couldn’t stand idly by and let some other country desecrate the joy of eating better then we can.  Well I’m happy to say that good old fashioned American Know-How has risen to the challenge with (drumroll…)…

Chicken In A Can!

Just the thing for that swine flu shelter you’re going to be building this weekend…

Top thAT Deutschen…

Jonathan Golob over at SLOG has some good bullet points about the emerging Swine Flu epidemic.  I’ll try to paraphrase:

Q: But thousands of people die every year from the flu.  Why is this one any different?

A: It’s killing younger healthier people is why.  This is not your normal seasonal flu that brings down older, or already very ill people.

Q: So we’re all going to die?

A: Not unless the Plague comes out from retirement too.  Even the horrible Spanish Flu of the early 1900s only killed 2 percent of the people it infected.  But considering how infectious flu is, 2 percent if this thing really takes off is still going to be a huge number of fatalities.  Just like it was back then.

Q: So why close the schools if we’re not all going to die?

A: (I love Jonathan’s answer here so I’m going to steal it verbatim) Because kids are second only to mosquitoes as vectors for disease transmission. 

It’s not just that we love the little dears, although we do, and want to keep them out of harms way.  It just seems to be hard to get it into their little heads that they shouldn’t wipe their little runny noses with their little fingers and then pick up a toy or open a door or share a cookie…

Q: What should we do?

A: Everything you usually do to avoid catching the flu, only more of it.  Wash hands often.  Especially after coming inside, and extra especially before touching your face and eyes.  Avoid confined enclosed spaces with other people, or keep at least three feet away.  Surgical masks won’t protect you from it.  Gloves won’t do any better if you forget and rub your eyes when you have them on.  Good hygiene is the best defense. 

It’s unlikely to happen, but keep enough food and stuff at home that you can sit it out for a few days should that ever become necessary.  This is good advice in any case.  Natural disasters, power grid failures, the unexpected localized calamity, can make being outdoors, driving anywhere or getting food a problem.  Just ask the folks in Tornado Ally, any earthquake zone, or anywhere an ice storm has massively brought down power lines.  You don’t have to go all urban survivalist…just be sensibly prepared. Like this little guy…

Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything
they’ve got into canned food and shotguns…

Don’t panic.  Just stay aware and informed.

Via Sullivan, relating a reader’s comment on John Derbyshire’s try at making a secular case for denying same-sex couples the right to marry…

Gay man says he was forced out of partner’s room at OHSU

The domestic partner of a man who appeared to be near death was reportedly ordered to leave the room when it was time to make some major decisions about the patient.

This all started with a hospital visit. The patient, who only wanted to go by his first name of Christopher, was having trouble breathing. So his partner, Patrick took him to OHSU.

As Christopher was laying close to death, Patrick was told he had to leave the room and couldn’t believe what the nurse was telling him.

"The nurse said, ‘Christopher is very ill. There are some life and death decisions that have to be made and now is not the time for friends to be in the room.’ I’m like, ‘we don’t have any friends in the room,’" recalled Patrick.

Under Oregon law, Patrick had the right to stay in the room because the pair had been legal domestic partners for nine months. Patrick found a lawyer who made a call to the hospital and after two and a half hours, he was allowed back inside. 

This commenter on Derbyshire’s post sums it up pretty well…

This is from a week ago. A woman in Florida, carrying documents, was kept out of the room while her partner of 18 years died. While their children stood by, no less. Why do people continually bury their heads in the sands about these things? “Oh, I can’t believe that people are so cruel!” It happens. We know it happens. We have documentation that it does. You know what stops it? The universally-understood bond of marriage.

The other major flaw with your argument is you never explain why extending marriage rights to gay couples will “mess” (with), “redefine” “overturn” or “overhaul” marriage. You simply assume your argument throughout.

When marriage changed from a property arrangement between a father a prospective husband, when women were changed from essentially chattel to equal partners, when marriage was changed from multiple wives to one – all of these did far more to change marriage then changing the gender of the two people involved in today’s civil marriage laws.

Last – "people who want to marry their ponies, their sisters, or their soccer team?" I thought equating homosexuality with bestiality and incest was limited to the religiously motivated. Disgusting. As for polygamy – marriage used to be that way in many cultures. Perhaps you had better ask historians why we changed away from it rather than ask the gays why they should have to preemptively defend against something for which they’re not asking.

Emphasis mine.  A case against same-sex marriage is not made by making a case against something else.  That said, you have to believe as Orson Scott Card does, that the bond between a same-sex couple simply does not exist…or that ripping it asunder is no crime against their humanity.

Why do people continually bury their heads in the sand?  They’re not.  Not at this stage of it.  The one’s doing that now aren’t burying their heads in the sand, they’re looking the other way.