"In Paraguay we are at T-9 days to national elections. The ruling party has been in power for nearly 61 years (including more than 30 years of dictatorship). Now the state-run ADSL company is hijacking the DNS nationwide of a site that denounces the corruption in the party."
…provoked this comment…
Paraguay is a country ruled by a conservative coalition.
Which only goes to show what my old bolshie Uncle Ivan used to say. "Kid," he’d say, "nobody believes in capitalism. Nobody believes in socialism. It’s socialism for me, and capitalism for you!" Ivan may have been a red, but he was a cynic first and foremost, and that keeps you honest.
In the end, there is only one thing that really matters in any system: transparency. At least if the system is supposed to be run for the benefit of the people who live under it. You can be all for the proletariat, or all for the free market, but if you’re pulling the wool of the peoples’ eyes, you aren’t any different from anybody else running a con behind high sounding priciples.
Well I believe in a free market because I don’t think that human beings can plan an economy any better then we can plan the weather. But a free market needs a rule of law and a means of preventing the power of money from subverting that rule of law, or that free market won’t remain free for very long, it’ll degenerate into oligarchy.
But that’s the republican ideal, isn’t it? For decades now anyone with half a brain could see that republicans favored oligarchy over all other forms of government. They claim to believe in both free markets and the rule of law and I think seven years plus of George Bush has pretty well decisively proved otherwise. Nothing disturbs the status-quo more then free market capitalism, when it isn’t turning it upside down. Nothing. And nothing locks the human potential in chains and thereby preserves the status-quo better then crony capitalism, which is to say, republican party economics.
The state religion of Oligarchy is God Loves The Rich. Its economic theory is To The Victors Belong The Spoils. Its theory of government is Might Makes Right. Vis:
On Thursday in the National Press Club in Washington, a crowd gathered to witness the presentation of the Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling to Lieutenant Commander Matthew Diaz. The story of Matthew Diaz was chronicled in this space repeatedly (also here and here). It is a story of courage, fortitude, conviction and suffering. Joe Margulies introduced the honoree with clarity:
no one can think it is fun when you sit in a courtroom as an accused, and a United States prosecutor points an accusatory finger at your chest and calls you a criminal and tells you that you have betrayed your oath and you have betrayed your country, and you have endangered the safety of the men and women that you swore to share your burdens with. And no one can think it is fun when you have to sit with your heart pounding in your chest as the jury files back into the room with a piece of paper folded in its hands, and that piece of paper holds your fate. And no one can think it is fun when that jury, your peers, pronounces you guilty. And no one can think it is fun when you have to face that same jury that will sentence you for what may be many years; many years that you will be away from your family, your life in tatters, your career ruined.
Matthew Diaz served his country as a staff judge advocate at Guantánamo. He watched a shameless assault on America’s Constitution and commitment to the rule of law carried out by the Bush Administration. He watched the introduction of a system of cruel torture and abuse. He watched the shaming of the nation’s uniformed services, with their proud traditions that formed the very basis of the standards of humanitarian law, now torn asunder through the lawless acts of the Executive. Matthew Diaz found himself in a precarious position—as a uniformed officer, he was bound to follow his command. As a licensed and qualified attorney, he was bound to uphold the law. And these things were indubitably at odds.
Diaz resolved to do something about it. He knew the Supreme Court twice ruled the Guantánamo regime, which he was under orders to uphold, was unlawful. In the Hamdan decision, the Court went a step further. In powerful and extraordinary words, Justice Kennedy reminded the Administration that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was binding upon them, and that a violation could constitute a criminal act. One senior member of the Bush legal team, informed of the decision over lunch, was reported to have turned “white as a sheet” and to have immediately excused himself. For the following months, Bush Administration lawyers entered into a frenzied discussion of how to protect themselves from criminal prosecution.
One of the crimes the Administration committed was withholding from the Red Cross a list of the detainees at Guantánamo, effectively making them into secret detainees. Before the arrival of the Bush Administration, the United States had taken the axiomatic position that holding persons in secret detention for prolonged periods outside the rule of law (a practice known as “disappearing”) was not merely unlawful, but in fact a rarified “crime against humanity.” Now the United States was engaged in the active practice of this crime.
The decision to withhold the information had been taken, in defiance of law, by senior political figures in the Bush Administration. Diaz was aware of it, and he knew it was unlawful. He printed out a copy of the names and sent them to a civil rights lawyer who had requested them in federal court proceedings.
Diaz was aware when he did this that he was violating regulations and that he could and would, if caught, be subjected to severe sanction. What he did was a violation of law, even as it was an effort to cure a more severe act of lawlessness by the Government. Diaz violated the law in precisely the same sense as Martin Luther King reminds us, in the Letter from Birmingham Jail, that his arrest was based on a violation of law. That everything the Nazis did in Germany was lawful. And that every act of the Hungarian freedom fighters was a crime. In terms of the moral law, however, Diaz was on the side of right, and the Bush Administration and the Pentagon had, by engaging in the conduct that the Supreme Court condemned, placed themselves on the side of lawlessness, corruption and dishonor.
Diaz was charged, tried and convicted for disclosing “secrets.” For the Bush Administration, any information which would be politically embarrassing or harmful to it is routinely classified “secret.” In this fashion the Administration believes it can use criminal sanctions against those who disclose information it believes will be politically damaging. The list of detainees at Guantánamo, which by law was required to be disclosed, was classified as “secret.”
Diaz spent six months in prison and left it bankrupt and without a job. In addition to his sentence, the Pentagon is working aggressively to have Diaz stripped of his law license so he will not be able to practice his profession. The Bush Administration has sought to criminalize, humiliate and destroy Diaz. Its motivation could not be clearer: Diaz struck a blow for the rule of law. And nothing could be more threatening to the Bush Administration than this.
When republicans tell you that they love free markets and hate big government, look around:
Dean Baker has a nice rant about the disappearance of reliance on "market forces" now that the Princes of Wall Street are staring disaster in the face without government help:
What Happened to "Free-Market" Conservatives (or Neo-liberals)?: With the housing bubble in full meltdown, our political leaders are busily ignoring all the things they have said about the market over the last quarter century and looking to throw all the money that they can find to sustain the bubble. This would be comical, if it weren’t so painful.
Remember all the steel workers and autoworkers who lost their jobs due to trade agreements that were supposed to advance economic efficiency over the last quarter century? How about the workers in the airline, trucking, and telecommunications industry who lost jobs due to deregulation, which was also supposed to increase economic efficiency?
Well, it’s a new day. Nothing these people (or their economists) said matters anymore. It housing bubble support time!
For years, economic policy was supposed to be guided by market principles. If our autoworkers couldn’t compete with their counterparts in Mexico or China, who got paid $1 an hour, then it would be inefficient to have trade protection that would keep them employed here. The same applied to regulations that might keep high paying jobs in key sectors of the economy. Educated people all knew that interfering with the market was harmful to the economy, and if we ever forgot this basic truth, the Washington Post regularly ran sanctimonious editorials to remind us.
Well, it’s a new day. The housing bubble is melting down and Congress and the Fed are throwing money everywhere. After all, this isn’t about auto workers and truckers, it’s about Wall Street banks, and the politicians are pulling out all the stops to come to the rescue. In addition to the money that the Fed is throwing at the banks through subsidized loans at its discount window, it is also granting free insurance to the investment banks — a gift that is potentially worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Now Congress is jumping into the act. Remember way back in the fall when they couldn’t find $7 billion to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program? Well, now Congress can finds hundreds of billions of dollars to support a housing bubble. It’s a worthy goal. After all, the Wall Street crew might lose their shirts if the housing bubble continues to meltdown.
Congress will not be able to support the housing bubble indefinitely, but they might be able to do it long enough to allow the big boys to cash out and pass more of their bad loans onto the taxpayers and other suckers.
The political support for this bailout package may make it unstoppable, but if it does go through, we should be clear that there are new rules. In the post bailout world, anyone who makes claims about forcing workers or the poor to take pay cuts or do without benefits in the name of economic efficiency is simply a fool or liar.
Anyone who cared about economic efficiency would be yelling at the top of their lungs against this bailout. Anyone who can throw untold hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at the rich to save their hides, has no concerns about economic efficiency, they just want to help the rich. In such a world, the rest of us have the right to demand the same sort of handouts from the government. And those who stand in the way are simply lackeys of the rich and powerful, who pretend to care about principles of economics.
Traditional Values = Forced Abortions And Prostitution
Bob Schaffer, Republican senate candidate for Colorado, is having his little vacation jaunts with convicted briber Jack Abramoff exposed on the pages of the Denver Post today. It’s smarmy for more reasons then the photos of him and his wife enjoying the lap of luxury on the dime of a group of Mariana Island sweat shop owners…
That’s Schaffer and his wife doing a little parasailing. Supposedly they’re investigating the conditions in the island sweat shops pending legislation to bring them under tighter U.S. regulation. The Mariana Island sweat shop owners were Abramoff’s biggest contributors. They’re about as sorded a bunch of republican bankrollers as you’re likely to find. As Joshua Marshall writes over at Talking Points Memo…
The Marianas program is notorious around the world for forced abortion, slavery, child prostitution, beatings and having the overwhelmingly female foreign workers houses in shacks with no plumbing surrounded by barbed wire.
And here’s Schaffer on his whirlwind tour of the sweatshops…
Schaffer later reported that the workers there all seemed happy. How…unsurprising. The Denver Post reports…
At the time, those alleged abuses and a push by the Clinton administration led to a flurry of congressional action. Several bills passed the Senate that would have brought the islands’ factories under stricter American laws, but the legislation failed in the House.
Hired by factory owners and the government of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Abramoff and his firm were paid more than $11 million over nine years to fend off those efforts, according to reports.
In a 2001 memo to the Marianas governor meant to justify millions in fees, Abramoff singles out the relationships built with members of the House Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over U.S. protectorates. He points to the lavish trips for dozens of lawmakers and family members to build goodwill. And he says his connections ultimately scuttled dangerous legislation like the bill proposed by then-Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, which would have toughened the islands’ labor and immigration laws.
"We then stopped it cold in the House," the memo boasts.
"In the end, this all-out public relations and lobbying blitz brought the (Mariana Islands) back from the brink of legislative disaster," the lobbyist wrote.
Never mind for a moment, that these congressional representatives of The Party Of Moral Values had to know where the money was coming from. Never mind that they cheerfully turned a blind eye to forced abortions and prostitution in exchange for a good time on the dime of highly successful businessmen whose business model only happened to include forcing their employees to have abortions and go into prostitution. They’re congressmen after all. And…republicans. Is there a lower form of life then that? Actually…yes there is. Does the human gutter go any deeper? Actually, yes it does. And does it wear it’s righteousness on its sleeve? Tsk, tsk…Need you ask… Why…of course!
Abramoff for obvious reasons, had to conceal his payoffs to Schaffer. It would never do to have it look like the very sweatshops he was investigating paid for his trip…and parasailing lessons. So a third party payment was arranged. Guess who served as Abramoff’s willing frontmen?
Yes…those morally righteous bible believing god fearing Jesus loving save marriage from the homosexuals folks over at the Traditional Values Coalition…
In some cases, Abramoff — who is now in prison for fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials, none of it related to the Mariana Islands — took efforts to obscure the scope of that effort and his firm’s involvement.
Values Coalition paid for trip
Schaffer’s $13,000 trip was paid for by the Orange County, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition, which Schaffer described as a religious group "concerned with human rights."
"Whatever involvement (Abramoff) had with Traditional Values Coalition wasn’t known at the time," Wadhams said.
Later investigations have shown that in many instances, TVC — which claims to represent 43,000 churches — acted virtually as a political arm of Abramoff’s lobbying operation.
In one 2000 case investigated by The Washington Post, TVC lobbied heavily against a bill restricting online gambling that would have hurt one of Abramoff’s clients, eLottery Inc. In return, the report said, TVC received a check from the client for $25,000. Abramoff and TVC head Louis Sheldon had cooperated successfully so often that the now-jailed lobbyist began referring to him as "Lucky Louie," the newspaper reported. A TVC official didn’t return a phone call requesting comment.
What Are Traditional Values? While other pro-family groups may have their own specific definitions of what "traditional values" means, here’s what we consider to be traditional values:
A moral code and behavior based upon the Old and New Testaments. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that the Lord has given us a rule book to live by: The Bible. We are committed to living, as far as it is possible, by the moral precepts taught by Jesus Christ and by the whole counsel of God as revealed in the Bible.
Moral precepts…did you say…? Oh…lookie here…
Right To Life: We believe that every human deserves the right to life—from conception to death—and that we do not have the right to kill unborn children nor to murder the elderly through active euthanasia.
You don’t say…
Homosexuality, Bi-Sexuality, Transgenderism, And Other Deviant Sexual Behaviors: The Bible clearly condemns all sexual behaviors outside of marriage between one man and one woman. Homosexual behavior is explicitly condemned in both the Old and New Testaments as an abomination and a violation of God’s standards for sexuality. We oppose the normalization of sodomy as well as cross-dressing and other deviant sexual behaviors in our culture.
You don’t say…
A U.S. Interior Department investigation found that pregnant workers were forced to get illegal abortions or lose their jobs. Some were recruited for factories but forced into the sex trade instead.
And you helped a bunch of Marianas sweat shop owners to pay off enough U.S. congressmen that their sweat shops could escape being regulated and thereby keep operating business as usual, which meant forcing their workers to get abortions and become prostitutes, and god knows what else. My, my…what traditional values you have there…
The Homosexual Movement And Pedophilia
The homosexual activist movement and organized pedophiles
are linked together by a common goal: To gain access to children for seduction into homosexuality.
How many of the women you’ve helped sweatshop owners force into prostitution were underage I wonder?
Cumberland County Commissioner Bruce Barclay resigned this afternoon, hours after it became public that he is the focus of a state police investigation of an allegation of rape
County President Judge Edgar Bayley said he received the resignation of Barclay, 48, a Monroe Twp. Republican, around 3 p.m. The county’s five judges will choose a replacement, who must be a Republican, Bayley said
Well of course he Must Be A Republican. You wouldn’t want one of those godless secular hedonistic democrats in government would you???
No charges have been filed against Barclay. His attorney, Matthew Gover, called the rape allegation "ludicrous."
Ludicrous did you say? Well…yes…it’s not rape if the other person involved is an adult who consented to the act…er…for a fee…
Former commissioner’s attorney: Footage shows rape charge unfounded
State police say former Cumberland County commissioner Bruce Barclay videotaped hundreds of sexual encounters — many with male escorts — using cameras hidden throughout his Monroe Township home.
Police say the sexual encounters were videotaped without the knowledge of the participants, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed Tuesday with Magisterial District Judge Susan Day. Court documents say cameras were installed in January of 2007.
Investigators are searching items seized from Barclay’s residence a second time in relation to a rape investigation.
Reading a prepared statement, Barclay’s attorney, Matthew Gover, said although he and Barclay do not agree with everything in the affidavit, “It is clear in my client’s private life he has made an error of judgment. What is striking is this very same lack of judgment exonerates him from a rape allegation that wasn’t going anywhere.”
…
According to court documents, Trooper Bryan R. Henneman said he “received information prior to the search warrant that Barclay had been involved in the hiring of prostitutes.”
During a subsequent interview, Henneman said Barclay admitted to hiring prostitutes on a weekly basis at his residence in Monroe Twp.”
The affidavit describes several such encounters with an Internet escort service known as “harrisburgfratboys.com.” Court documents indicate Barclay twice flew a 19-year-old man referred to as “W.M.” to his West Palm Beach home. During a trip last month, “W.M” told investigators that Barclay flew a male prostitute from Binghamton, N.Y., and paid that man $1,500.
Wow. This is the second one and half grand escort I’ve read about in the past few weeks. And you thought the price of gasoline was skyrocketing…
Hidden camera network
The affidavit describes a hidden camera network that included cameras hidden in a bathroom, bedrooms and “indoor recreational areas.” Cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, court documents say.
During an interview with Barclay, Henneman said he “admitted to using the cameras to record sexual encounters.” Police say Barclay saved between 100 and 500 encounters on his computer system.
According to court documents “Barclay stated that no one else was aware of the hidden cameras and also that no one else was aware that the sexual encounters were videotaped or gave him permission to videotape the encounters.”
Business camera
Henneman said Barclay also admitted to having a camera installed at his business along the 500 block of North York Street in Mechanicsburg. According to court documents, Barclay told Henneman that one sexual encounter was filmed on that camera, which also fed into his home computer network.
Barclay told Henneman that “at least” five additional males were filmed having sex “who were unaware that they were being filmed.”
How much you want to bet this jackass is completely onboard with the drive to write an anti-same sex marriage amendment into the Pennsylvania constitution? Gotta defend those family values…
And in other news…
News 8 has obtained the complete search warrant request and affidavit of probable cause. You can read it in its entirety here, however, please note that some of it is graphic.
The Travelodge hotel chain have conducted a survey of 2,248 Brits to find out what helps them go to sleep.
According to Reuters Coldplay topped the list of music that acts as the perfect sleeping pill replacement. James Blunt, Snow Patrol, Take That and Norah Jones were also high on the list.
Sleep inducing music wasn’t the only topic polled. Reuters reports, "But those who prefer to be tucked in with a book at night judged celebrity autobiographies as the most effective sleep aid, with the life stories of glamour model Jordan, soccer star David Beckham and Sharon Osbourne ranking at the top."
White noise generally puts me to sleep. No, that’s not the name of an Easy Listening orchestra. At least I don’t think so.
This in my email box, from the Southern Poverty Law Center…
Last week, we asked you to take a stand against the growing number of white supremacist, neo-Nazi, anti-immigrant, anti-gay and other hate groups in our country — a staggering 48% increase since 2000.
Funny how that worked out, isn’t it? The Bush republicans take over the Federal Government, and a majority of the statehouses, and what do you know…hate groups just start springing up everywhere…
Here’s the rest of the email… Figured I’d pass it along in case any of you reading this wanted to join in…
Thousands of people of goodwill — just like you — responded by adding themselves to our map as a voice for tolerance.
It’s not too late for you to join all those who are standing strong against hate.
You’ve shown your commitment to ending injustice and racism. Now, I’m asking you to show your concern about this alarming increase in hate groups by taking a stand against hate.
We need people in every city, county and state to stand up and be counted and show that we are a nation that will not accept the hate, racism and intolerance infecting our communities, schools and political debate.
Please add yourself to our interactive map as a voice for tolerance — and find out which hate groups are active in your area.
I’m also asking that you send your friends this link and ask them to take a stand against hate.
And if they’re fortunate enough to be in an area with few hate groups, then tell them it’s important to take a stand now, before the seeds of hate take root in their communities.
Together we can make a difference.
Thank you for your commitment to ending injustice and racism.
When I was 16 I had a dark secret. Something that embarrassed me deeply. Something I knew I could never tell my friends about. No…not my sexual orientation, although this secret of mine really should have spelled it out for me in neon lights. But I was young, and naive, and full of all the myths, lies and superstitions about homosexuality that the adults in my life had fed me, so I was sure I wasn’t one. I didn’t swish…I didn’t lisp…I enjoyed most of the typical boyhood pastimes and had little to no use for girl things. Well…except one. My private stash of Tiger Beat and 16 Magazines. That was my embarrassing secret.
Every month when the new issues would come out, I would sweat blood walking to a drugstore miles away from the nearest ones to my apartment, to get my fix where hopefully none of my school mates would recognize me. Once there I would load up on several other magazines and stuff the ones I really wanted in the middle of the stack and hope the checkout clerk wouldn’t notice too much that a teenage boy was buying teenage girl magazines. Occasionally an eyebrow would arch in my direction, and I would lamely say I was buying them for a non-existent sister. More often then not, the statement was greeted with smirking disbelief. Checkout clerks probably know more about human nature then priests do.
I would take my swag home and immediately open the teen mags and go right to the pages with photos of my favorites on them…my teenage heart-throbs if I had enough courage back then to acknowledge it. But I didn’t. I’d been told all my life that homosexuals were dangerous psychopaths who killed and mutilated strangers while having horrible, perverse sex. And I, being a bit of a late bloomer actually, was still too young to have all that much interest in sex. But I knew I liked looking at beautiful guys. I knew that something about them made my heart sigh. I would lay awake some nights imagining how it would be to be their best friend.
Looking back on all of it, in a different world I could have had my own sweet little teenybopper adolescence. It would have been nice to be able to grow up like most other kids without fear or shame of my own sexuality, and just grow into it naturally. I picture myself sometimes at that age, sitting at my desk, pen or brush in hand, working on a cartoon for the school newspaper, or alternatively soldering iron in hand, circuit boards and a tray of components in front of me, working on a new Heathkit stereo, photos of my favorite funny cars on the wall in front of me, side by side with those of my current male teen heartthrob, the radio next to me playing bubblegum pop. But for a change it’s something that isn’t afraid to speak to the gay teens in the audience too…
This morning, I woke up with this feeling
I didn’t know how to deal with
And so I just decided to myself
I’d hide it to myself
And never talk about it
And did not go and shout it
When you walked into the room …..
"I think I love you!" "I think I love you!"
David Cassidy…man oh man…what a bitchin’ Fox!!!
I picture myself being open and cheerful about my developing romantic interests in guys. At home and at school, among my friends, among my family. Bruce is growing up…and, oh look, he’s discovered…boys. Well, well… His friendships always were a bit intense… So different I would have been from the shy, quiet boy who kept himself slightly apart from the others, because he didn’t understand himself, and was so afraid how people would react to him if he let his guard down. I would probably have been just another bubbly adolescent…a bit artistic, a bit of a techno geek, typically boyish but with a positively girlish streak in him whenever it came to boys I found too cute for words.
But I wasn’t allowed that adolescence. Instead I hid my teen magazines under the bed, and listened to my bubblegum pop alone, never really realizing that I was on the threshold of one of this life’s most wonderful moments…the time we discover what love is all about. I could have walked into it happily…joyfully even. Instead I struggled, stumbled, and hid my heart fearfully. My mom would remark with great sadness in her diaries (which I inherited after her death) how I had changed from a cheerful young boy into one of sullen moods, and a sudden angry temper. It makes me cry to read those entries.
I look at my record collection from back then…mostly the 45rpm singles I bought in my middle teen years because back then I wouldn’t spend the price of a whole album unless it was a band I really liked a lot, and I see almost nothing but love songs among them. Granted, that’s mostly what rock has always been. But there was a lot of it back then about life and politics, the war and the struggles our generation was going through. Songs I loved like For What It’s Worth, and Incense and Peppermint…and interestingly enough in retrospect, Hold Your Head Up.
And if it’s bad
Don’t let it get you down, you can take it
And if it hurts
Don’t let them see you cry, you can take it
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
And if they stare
Just let them burn their eyes on you moving
And if they shout
Don’t let them change a thing what you’re doing
Hold your head up, hold your head up
Hold your head up, hold your head high
I don’t think I need to analyze very much why I liked that one. But the songs I turned to again and again alone in my bedroom were the love songs, and what is amazing to me about that in retrospect is that at that age I really didn’t care much for all that gushy love stuff. I was going through my stacks of 45 rpms the other day and it just floored me how much of it was surgery sweet love songs. As I remember that part of my life, I didn’t have much interest in all that love stuff. But then, nobody told me I could fall in love with a guy either.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the lyrics in those songs, but something in the music itself spoke to me, in a way that the lyrics, speaking only to the straight boys in the audience, never could. I would connect with it instantly when I heard it on the radio, and like a flash I was down to the record store to by the single. It would be years before I would find myself listening to the lyrics. I had to grow into myself as a gay man first, and then learn the trick a lot of gay guys have to learn in this world, of mentally changing a pronoun as I listen…
You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
[Girl], we couldn’t get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire
Come on baby, light my fire
Try to set the night on fire
I never really paid much attention to those lyrics at first. Just the music, and the sultry sound of Morrison’s voice.
You are all the [woman] I need, and baby you know it,
You can make this beggar a king, a clown or a poet.
I’ll give you all that I own.
You got me standing in line
Out in the cold,
pay me some mind.
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you want me,
Long as you love me, it’s all right
Bend me, shape me
Anyway you wnat me,
You got the power to turn on the light.
Something in the music spoke to me, in a way the lyrics just didn’t. My record collection is full of these kinds of songs. Bubblegum pop mostly, as they called it back then. In another world, there would have been some that spoke directly to gay guys, or at least was gender neutral enough that I could have taken the lyrics to heart as much as I did the music. But even back then, well before I came out to myself as a gay man, I had a soul for sweet love songs. Perhaps…a tad too sweet.
Which brings me to the one other thing that embarrassed me slightly back in those days, but not so much that I felt I had to go to great lengths to hide it from my friends. That was my taste in music. On the one hand, it was The Doors, and Airplane, and Led Zeppelin. On the other, it was The Monkees, Buddha Records, and Crimson and Clover. In retrospect I’m surprised more of my classmates hadn’t figured me out long before I’d figured out myself. But as it turns out, even were I straight I’d have had to hide most of my record collection from my friends. In another world, I would have been allowed to enjoy that music. In this one only teenage girls are allowed to like those kinds of songs. Because…well…they’re girls.
In most respects I was your usual adolescent male. But there was this definite girlish streak in me that would just pop out at various times. And well before I came understand myself as a gay man, I knew better then to let people see it. I kept it to myself alone in my bedroom. That knowledge had been driven into me in the usual way it is with boys like the one I was, on the school yards and in the hallways, and around corners where no one could see, I would get beaten…badly sometimes…by other boys who thought it was so much fund to beat the crap of out kids like me. But let’s face it, they’d been given permission to by the adults in their lives, and by the culture they lived in.
Girly boy. Consider that phrase for a moment. The knuckle dragging morons who throw it around can be driven by homophobia at times…maybe even most times…but not always. Even among gay males, you see the occasional contempt for those among us who are not 200 percent masculine. There is more misogyny in that phrase, then homophobia. I wouldn’t call myself effeminate. I don’t think any of my friends would either. A bit nerdish, yeah. A bit wonkish. I am no John Wayne by any means, but no Liberace either. But there is this definite girlish streak in me and I have struggled for most of my life now to let it just be itself because I repressed it so deeply when I was a teenager, and then again as a young adult male. Never mind being gay. Gay or straight, guys are not supposed to be sweethearts.
Which brings me to a post a read just yesterday over at Pam’s House Blend…
The writer gives an interesting history of Rickrolling, and then this rather poignant little personal story…
I was introducted to Rickrolling by my teenage nephew about a year or so ago. My nephew told me that he and his friends amuse themselves by sending music and video clips of Rick Astley via e-mail, and cellphone.
When my nephew showed me the video of Rick Astley singing Never gonna Give You Up on YouTube, he laughed out loud uncontrolably. Then, I asked him, "Why do you think this is so funny?"
Silence.
Uh, oh. I’d seen that silent response before. My nephew suddenly remembered that his favorite uncle is gay. He was at a loss for words as to how to explain why he finds Rick Astley to be funny.
I had to press him for the truth, "Is it because he looks gay?"
"Uh, it isn’t that he looks so gay, Uncle Fritz. It is because, uh, his voice doesn’t fit the way he looks."
"Gay?"
Silence.
Of course, ‘gay’ has been turned into an all-around put-down in schools these days…sort of like the way ‘Jewish’ used to be used as a synonym for someone who was cheap or stingy or selfish. I was Rickrolled a few days ago…by a gay friend no less…and I picked up on what was going on immediately. It’s not homophobia specifically. The joke isn’t that Astley or his music is gay in the sense of…well…homosexual. It’s gay in the general put-down sense. It’s gay as in lame. It’s gay as in wimpy. It’s gay as in weak. More to the point, it’s gay as in Sissy.
Now people have been putting down each other’s music since humans were making tunes with drums and sticks, so I don’t think it’s all about gender bullying. Music just reaches in to a place deep inside of us, past our logical rational parts, and strums our feelings directly. Music that rubs our emotions the wrong way can be really, really annoying and it’s no more a rational distaste then seeing someone you find unattractive naked is. I’m sure Never Going To Give You Up gets on a lot of people’s nerves. But enough people liked it that it became an international hit. How many songs do that? Why the disrespect? Simple:
Here’s the thing I want you to notice: it wasn’t Eltonrolling. Say what you want about Elton John, but that he’s a large presence in the pop music world is undeniable. He’s made millions, and that gives him a measure of power and respect. Rick Astley is the too cute for his own good boy-next-door who likes to bring his girl flowers and write her pretty songs and gets the crap beaten out of him by the other kids on a regular basis. That’s why it’s Rickrolling and not Eltonrolling. It isn’t about gay. It’s about wuss.
Sissy is in fact, a put-down applied to gay people out of contempt. The stereotype is that we’re all limp-wristed, swishing lisping effeminates. And yes, you meet some pretty girlish gay guys. But then you also meet some pretty girlish straight ones too. Sometimes those are called Effete Intellectuals. Sometimes they are Bleeding-heart Liberals. This chest thumping de-masculinization of the hated other is about as primitive as it gets, which is why you see a lot of it in school yards and hallways. But more then that, it is a deeply perverse attack not just on the humanity of the target, but on humanity itself. Cold hearted brutality does not build civilizations, it only and gleefully destroys them. It is our ability to love and trust one another, cooperate and protect one another, that keeps the jungle from our streets. The deeper, more ancient animal parts of us may be our bedrock, but it is our capacity to love and cherish that takes us out of the ancient wilderness and into civilization.
But that’s a world the gutter cannot cope with. A world where the smaller gentler boys aren’t afraid, are happy and carefree, is a world where the survival skills of thugs don’t get them anywhere, and that’s a world they will not endure the sight of.
It was more then a cheerful adolescence that was taken from me. It was a part of me that I lost in those years. So different I would have been from the shy, quiet boy who kept himself slightly apart from the others, because he didn’t understand himself, and was so afraid how people would react to him if he let his guard down. Instead I struggled, stumbled, and hid my heart fearfully, and changed from a cheerful young boy into one of sullen moods, and a sudden angry temper. This is how the gutter wins. I’ve been trying to reclaim this part of myself ever since. Maybe some day the human race will stop allowing its children to be abused.
Via Box Turtle Bulletin… Now what the hell was this supposed to accomplish…?
We commented earlier on how the mainstream media omitted all mention of Major Alan Rogers’ orientation or of his efforts to overturn the military’s ban on open gay servicemen. We told you how the Washington Post ombudsman wrote a column to repair that deliberate exclusion. Now there’s a new twist.
The user on Monday redacted details about Rogers that appeared on the online encyclopedia site. Information that was deleted included Rogers’ sexual orientation; the soldier’s participation in American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group that works to change military policy toward gays; and the fact that Rogers’ death helped bring the U.S. military’s casualty toll in Iraq to 4,000.
And while the individual responsible isn’t known,
The IP address attached to the deletion of the details and the posted comments is 141.116.168.135. The address belongs to a computer from the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at the Pentagon. The office is headed by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who was present at Rogers’ funeral and presented the flag from Rogers’ coffin to his cousin, *Cathy Long.
The factual information has been reinstated in the Wikipedia entry.
* Long is the cousin that was unaware of Rogers’ orientation and thought it should be left out of the Post article.
Alan Rogers’ was a soldier and a gay man. He was dedicated to equal rights for gay soldiers. He kept his sexual orientation at least partly in the closet, so he could continue to serve. That is the devil’s bargan Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell demands of gay soldiers. He could have easily avoided the FUBAR that George Bush made of Iraq by coming out of the closet and getting his discharge. He didn’t. Whatever you think of Bush’s splendid little war, Alan Rogers’ was obviously proud of his service to the United States. While in uniform, bearing arms for the sake of his country, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. The least his country could do, is be proud of him too.
And I think his country Is proud. Even the piss ignorant jackasses who still believe in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Some of them anyway. Probably not James Dobson or Sally Kern. But I think even louts like Charles Krauthammer would salute this man’s memory, just as he was. Maybe. However, as you can see, it is still far too much to ask of the stars and bars in their comfortable air conditioned pentagon offices, that they be proud of All their fallen heroes.
To customers perusing the notice-board in the village post office, the job advertisement must have seemed too good to be true. For £7 an hour, with all expenses paid, a man was required to visit a local pub and drink beer.
The assignment was to be carried out at at least twice a week at the Compass Inn in Winsor, Hampshire, in the company of an elderly gentleman.
The advert is genuine, and the four men who have applied for the position so far are to undergo trial drinking sessions in the coming week, though their potential employer is open to applications from new candidates.
It is an appeal from a desperate man. Until recently, Jack Hammond, 88, would drink four times a week with a neighbour in Barton-on-Sea. Then he moved into a nursing home a few miles away to be closer to his family. Forest Edge Care Home boasts a garden and easy access to shops; what it cannot offer Mr Hammond is a suitable drinking partner. All but one of his fellow residents are women. Which is how the advertisement came to be placed in the nearby village of Cadnam.
For some it is a sign of the times that an elderly gentleman lacks a companion with whom to visit the local pub, although it is increasingly common.
Mr Hammond’s wife died 12 years ago, and the upheaval of moving into a care home has left him feeling isolated. “It was a bit upsetting when I had to leave as I left all my friends back home,” he said.
Jeeze…I’m only 54 and I can already relate. I moved to Baltimore and left all my friends behind in Washington because up here was where i was getting work, and I could actually afford the rents. But at least I’m healthy enough I can drive down to Washington to see my friends regularly. The day is coming, when all I’ll have is what’s within a short distance from where I make my bed. But maybe by that time I’ll have voices in my head to keep me company.
People have had to buy sex since before the written word. Here’s what it’s come to in our age: people are having to buy friends. Except you can’t.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
So said Robert Frost. He was wrong. You can buy sex but you can’t buy love. You can buy a companion but you can’t buy friendship. Hopefully Mr. Hammond has had enough love and friendship in his life that he can find all he needs now in a bought companion. But the rest of us need to look at this and worry about what we are becoming. It shouldn’t have to be like this. In an age where advertisers can track our every desire and feed us up products we’re likely to want, just by tracking our web browsing habits, we are loosing our humanity. How is it, that this guy was moved away from his friends into a nursing home located where it is, simply to be closer to his family, and nobody seems to have given any thought to his need for companionship?
Chris Perry, director of Hampshire Age Concern, often sees elderly men who lack a companion for their regular pub visits. “It is easy to become socially isolated at this age due to bereavement or from people moving away,” he said. “But this man needs to be commended for using his initiative for putting an advert in the window.”
And you need to feel ashamed, very, very ashamed, that he had to. So it’s easy for people to become socially isolated at that age is it? So you often see elderly men who lack companionship do you? Then what fucking use is your goddamned Hampshire Age Concern?
ORLANDO, Fla. — A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
Fat chance.
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.
If you think this sort of thing isn’t what the people who are pushing Abstinence Only sex education intended you aren’t paying attention. This is exactly what they want. Remember, these are the same people who don’t want young girls vaccinated against the virus that can cause cervical cancer because…well…because people who have sex without their permission deserve to die horribly. They Want kids to get HIV. They Want kids to get pregnant. They Want their bodies to shrivel with disease that could have been easily prevented. And not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex. No…no…no… Not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex. Because they hate them. Because they hate the joy of life they see in them. Because they hate humanity. If people can’t be taught to hate their bodies, if they can’t be taught to feel shame for being human, if they won’t beg god to forgive them simply for existing, then they have to die. It really is that simple. If you think that bottomless hatred of humanity only exists in radical Islam you are not paying attention.
The organization collecting signatures for a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage in California says it is close to meeting the requirement.
Protect Marriage says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed. The deadline for turning in the petitions to county registrars is April 21.
Registrars are then required to take a random sample of signatures to verify. If that sampling shows at least 10 percent more valid signatures than required the petitions will be certified and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.
"The numbers are good, solid," Ron Prentice, a spokesperson for Protect Marriage told The Christian Examiner, a conservative Christian publication.
"We are well toward our goal. There are thousands more yet to be counted with a steady stream still coming in."
Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000 prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties. Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.
Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.
It would just break my heart if the land of my birth did that to me. I’ve noted before that the only reason I can travel freely around the United States is that I’m single. If I had a spouse, there are many states in this so-called union that we simply could not set foot in because if one of us had a sudden health problem, or there was an accident, it would become a nightmare for both of us. Even with a so-called durable power of attorney, we could be denied the right to simply be with each other in a hospital…even with a medical directives document…we could be denied the power to make medical decisions for each other should one of us become suddenly incapacitated. Some state constitutional amendments, like Virginia’s are so stringently and thoroughly crafted to ostracize same sex couples from the protections of the law, that they can even be read to deny same sex couples the right to hold a joint checking account.
There are simply not that many people in this country who hate us enough to want to do that to us. The problem, like it was for another hated minority group over in Europe back in the 1920s and 30s, is that the rest of the nation doesn’t care enough to tell them to stop it. So when these amendments are put up to a vote, they stay home and allow hate to have its way. These are the people who say later, "We heard the rumors, but we didn’t believe them…"
Once upon a time I planned to move back to California after mom passed away. Then I got the job I do now, and my little Baltimore rowhouse, and I stayed in Maryland. But even now I think sometimes that when my time to retire comes, if it ever does, I’d like to spend the last years of my life back there where I was born. It’s a lovely state. It would break my heart if the day ever came that I couldn’t even visit California again.
I have a book on my desk waiting for me to read, titled, The Lavender Scare, about the persecution of gay government employees during the height of the cold war. So this story, via Talking Points Memo, caught my attention…
The Department of Justice’s inspector general continues to conduct its wide-ranging investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and the general politicization of the Department under Alberto Gonzales. And as we reported back in August of last year, one area of focus by investigators is allegedly political hiring practices by Monica Goodling. The inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility sent out a questionnaire to anyone who had interviewed for a job at the DoJ during Gonzo’s tenure. One thing investigators wanted to know about was whether the interviewer had asked about the applicant’s sexual orientation.
NPR today provides some more evidence that Goodling and her associates might have decided that being gay was a disqualifier. Leslie Hagen was the liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys’ committee on Native American issues until her contract was suddenly discontinued in October of 2006.
And from NPR…
Justice Department e-mails obtained by NPR show that Gonzales’s senior counsel Monica Goodling had a particular interest in Hagen’s duties….
The Justice Department’s inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is lesbian.
As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat."
Several people interviewed by the inspector general’s staff said investigators asked whether people drew a connection between the rumors and Hagen’s dismissal….
Someone who worked in Hagen’s office says that in a 2006 meeting, senior officials were told that Hagen’s contract would not be renewed because someone on the attorney general’s staff had a problem with Hagen. The problem, it was suggested during the conversation, was sexual orientation — or what was rumored to be Hagen’s sexual orientation.
One person at the meeting asked, "Is that really an issue?" But the decision had been made.
"To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat." The party of hate. It’s not always about cynical manipulation of people’s fears. A lot of them really do hate us that much.
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