As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely.
At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.
But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we've decided not to allow comments for the time being. It's a shame that it's come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it's a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.
Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell has reportedly posted a comment on the Post's internal message board announcing that she has learned the following "lesson" from exchanges with Media Matters for America: "From now on, I don't reply." Howell's language did not make clear whether she meant that she would no longer reply to any criticism, or only to that registered by Media Matters.
...
The "attack" to which Howell is apparently referring is a Media Matters item in which we quoted Howell's January 10 email to us, at her request. Howell claimed in that email that she had previously said that Post reporter Dafna Linzer "was giving the administration's point of view" in her January 4 article. In fact, Howell had previously said that Linzer "was simply giving the administration's point of view as well as others." But with regard to the claim in question, Linzer had not provided the point of view of "others" in her article -- an omission that constitutes the original basis of the entire dispute...
On the January 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck called anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute," later amending, at the behest of his executive producer, Steve "Stu" Burguiere, that "tragedy pimp" would be "the most accurate description."
Beck referenced Sheehan during what he called a "search for the biggest prostitute," which, he said, sought to answer the question, "Who'll do anything for power or money?" The game initially pitted former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss against Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and suspended Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens.
Beck, who claims that his radio show is "ranked as the 3rd most listened to talk show in America among Adults 25-54," was recently hired to host his own program on CNN Headline News.
Take a look at the photo of this guy on the Media Matters site and tell me he doesn’t look like the stereotypical schoolyard bully…the kind that is always threatening the smaller weaker kids for their lunch money, or shoving their faces into their locker doors and laughing.
MATTHEWS (1/18/06): Have you gone to see it yet? I've seen everything else but that. I just...
IMUS: No, I haven't seen it. Why would I want to see that?
MATTHEWS: I don't know. No opinion on that. I haven't seen it either, so...
IMUS: So they were...it was out when I was in New Mexico and...it doesn't resonate with real cowboys who I know.
MATTHEWS: Yeah...
IMUS: But then, maybe there's stuff going on on the ranch that I don't know about. Not on my ranch, but you know...
MATTHEWS: Well, the wonderful Michael Savage, who's on 570 in DC, who shares a station with you at least, he calls it [laughter]...what's he call it?...he calls it Bare-back Mount-ing. That's his name for the movie.
IMUS: Of course, Bernard calls it Fudgepack Mountain...
NEW YORK (AP) - MSNBC on Monday fired Michael Savage for anti-gay comments.
The popular radio talk show host who did a weekend TV show for the cable channel referred to an unidentified caller to his show Saturday as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die."
"His comments were extremely inappropriate and the decision was an easy one," MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said.
Fudge packers. Tragedy pimps. Civil discourse. Without the commercial news media, where would it be? We bloggers should be ashamed of ourselves. Just…ashamed…
When Peterson Toscano came to Baltimore some months ago, he not only gave us his performance of Doin’ Time In The Homo No Mo Halfway House, and Queer 101, but also gave us some glimpses of a work in progress which he was calling then, The Re-Education Of George Bush. In the latter, a character named Marvin, an ex-gay man, leads Bush though a series of topics such as the economy, privilege, environmentalism, the Bible and humanity. What made it work for me was Peterson’s deft capture of the little nuances of character in a person like Marvin, who is from Brooklyn and a strong working class Bush supporter. I’ve met very few committed ex-gays in my life, and at any rate non that I can say for certain are still in that life. For a few moments in an old Baltimore church late last year, Peterson brought one to life for me. Seeing the excerpts from this work in progress made me hungry to watch the finished piece when it finally arrives.
Well…as it turns out… Marvin has a blog. An audio blog specifically, which is good because you really can’t get to know Marvin without hearing him. You can hear Marvin speak on various topics, and minister to those of us who have been blinded by the god of this world, here, and here, and here, and here. Marvin is a tad opinionated, but unlike some Bush bloggers, he welcomes your comments.
And I’m thinking…it would be nice if some of the other folks in Peterson’s shows would step forward with their own blogs. Chad should have his own audioblog too. Definitely. Oh…and the Minister from Doin’ Time…. Yes. And Tex. Oh foo…just give them all a blog.
And by the way…Peterson has a new schedule of performances up here, so check it out and see if he’s coming to your neighborhood. I’ve promised to write more about what I saw when he came to Baltimore, and I find that some of what I saw moved me so much I’m Still chewing on it. So many shows you go to just leave you the moment you walk out of the theater. Not Peterson’s, I guarantee it.
We don't remember too much from four years of high school Latin, but we do recall this phrase: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes -- Who will guard the guards themselves? Is there a way to say in Latin, "Who will be an ombudsman for the ombudsman?" Seriously -- to whom does one complain at the Washington Post when the person who is there to receive reader complaints defiantly gets it wrong?
We're referring, of course, to Sunday's piece by the Post's new ombudswoman, Deborah Howell, which ... ended up on a note that read like it was straight from the offices of the Republican National Committee. Here's what she wrote: "The second complaint is from Republicans, who say The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats [in the Abramoff scandal]. Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money. "So far, Schmidt and Grimaldi say their reporting on the investigations hasn't put Democrats in the first tier of people being investigated. But stay tuned. This story is nowhere near over."
The first assertion is flat-out wrong. Dorgan and Reid could not have received "Abramoff campaign money," because as numerous articles and investigations have shown, Abramoff never donated a dime to any Democrat. Not one. That's not surprising, since Abramoff... is a Republican.
John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog posted a complete list of all the people Abramoff gave money too. There is not a single democrat among them. Not one. Not. One. Yet the Mainstream News Media persists in repeating the republican lie that democrats as well as republicans got money from Abramoff. What is so goddamn hard about telling the truth here?
The Zogby poll referenced by Atrios shows that Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens, by a margin of 52% to 43%. Yet the mainstream news media still regards impeachment as a partisan fringe issue.
Whilst browsing the comments on this post over at Washington Monthly (via a link from Atrios), regarding Bush Administration saber rattling on Iran’s nuclear program, I come across clues that there’s another catch-phrase making the wingnut rounds…
Your BDS is showing. If you don’t like Congress not asserting it’s powers over the President in war-time, elect a Dem majority. Otherwise, please kindly have a nice cup of STFU.
…
When an American city is smoking, radioactive ruin, I will trot out the 100,000 BDS posts from 2003-2006 to show how liberals brought on the appeasement conditions that allowed it to happen. I will prominently display your posts the most and in largest font!
…
1. BDS
2. America-hatred
3. Israel-hatred
Scratch a leftist and you’ll find all three. Rational thought, uh no.
Somebody finally asks…
Is “BDS” some new acronym being traded amongst the semi-literate online wingnuts, these days?
To which our little wingnut responds…
BDS is Bush Derangement Syndrome which 99.999% of liberals suffer from. It’s totally irrational hatred of George W. Bush which clouds all rational thought.
And speaking of rational thought…this is what he posted later. Remember, this is a thread about Bush administration saber rattling over Iran’s nuclear program…
I will agree that trying to impose our values on those religious idiots(Shia and Sunni) in Iraq is not going to work in the short-term. I’m for all out civil war, let a few million be killed and then we’ll side with the winner.
Bush Derangement Syndrome: Characterized by genocidal and sociopathic impulses, gross inability to determine right from wrong or distinguish between true and false. Caused by prolonged uncritical and unconditional support of the Bush Administration…
The most dramatic moment of the day came when the judge’s wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who had been sitting behind him, left the hearing room in tears. She left when Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was apologizing to Alito for his treatment by the opposition. Graham, who was present at a White House preparation session for Alito, mocked Democrats for their relentless questioning about the Princeton group by asking Alito rhetorically if he is "really a closet bigot." After Alito replied that he is "not any kind of a bigot," Graham continued: "Guilt by association is going to drive good men and women away from wanting to sit where you’re sitting…. Judge Alito, I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this." After a break, the judge escorted his wife back in. Conservatives seized on the incident to complain about Democratic "bullying," and said they plan to make the incident a cause celebre. "When will the media shame these people for their behavior?" Sean Rushton, executive director of the administration-friendly Committee for Justice, asked in a blast e-mail to journalists. The always-alert Creative Response Concepts, a conservative public relations firm, sent this bulletin: "Former Alito clerk Gary Rubman witnessed Mrs. Alito leaving her husband’s confirmation in tears and is available for interviews, along with other former Alito clerks who know her personally and are very upset about this development." In case that was too much trouble for the journalists, the firm also e-mailed out a statement from the Judicial Confirmation Network calling "for the abuse to stop."
Creative Response Concepts is the right wing media outfit that first began hyping the Swift Boat Veterans. Funny how they had that bulletin about Mrs. Scalito’s tears hitting the fax machines within moments of the event itself. Oh…and they’re available for interviews… Sympathy. You could almost have some for American fascists, when you realize that gestures of sympathy are all they can manage, the real thing being completely incomprehensible to them. When a lawyer for the family of a 10 year old girl who was strip searched without a warrant in a small Pennsylvania coal town in 2003, brought their case before the federal Third Circuit Court, Alito snappishly asked him, "Why do you keep bringing up the fact that this case involves the strip search of a 10-year-old child?" His defenders claim it was about his dedication to applying the law, not sympathy for one small brutalized child. Yes. Just so. The appeal to sympathy pisses them off because it exposes that empty void inside of them, where a human heart would otherwise be. We meet them first in school, then in adult life…the ones that always seem to have a blind spot when it comes to sympathy and compassion. The gentle pull and tug of daily human interaction is a frightening mystery to them. All their lives they take refuge in the structure and form of tradition and religion and law, because without them they’re utterly lost and rudderless in the human community. Over time they may learn how to fake it, but they hate having to do so at a moment’s notice because they have no reflex for it. It’s all an act, and one that as they get older, and achieve some measure of status and power, seems more and more pointless. But it can have it’s uses. Like tears for senators.
The American Civil Liberties Union says that a pastor who frequently speaks out against homosexuality and was arrested last week for propositioning a male police officer was charged in violation of the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay sex. The Rev. Lonnie Latham, 60, appeared briefly in court on Thursday on charges of lewd conduct, a misdemeanor. Latham was arrested January 3 after allegedly asking an undercover officer to join him in his hotel room for oral sex. Police impounded Latham’s 2005 Mercedes. (story) He was released on a $500 bond. As he was leaving jail he said: “I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police.”
The ACLU is right of course. The police were conducting a prostitution sting in the area, and the lewd conduct charge was apparently laid on Latham because he never suggested that money change hands. But in that case his arrest can only be for propositioning the cop. That’s speech, and since Lawrence they can’t argue that he was propositioning the cop to commit a crime. This is the second state now that I know of, that seems to be flaunting the Supreme Court decision that overturned the sodomy laws. Virginia being the other. Back in the days after Brown v. Board of Education, some people, including lawmakers in the old Confederacy, were calling for “massive resistance” to racial integration. You can just see something similar brewing over Lawrence. How dare you say we have to treat homosexuals as if they were citizens too… And if president Junior is able to stack the Supreme Court with religious right nutcases like Scalito we may live to see a day when same sex couples are once again made into criminals. The Oklahoma District Attorney seems to think he’s merely being even handed about it…
Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane said Oklahoma law prohibits a person from offering to engage in a lewd act “regardless of whether money is sought for or engaged.” “In this case, that is exactly what Mr. Latham is alleged to have done. To his misfortune, that individual was an Oklahoma City police officer,” Lane said.
…which is another way of saying the law criminalizes a certain kind of speech. But no…this is just a backdoor way of trying to keep people from having sex. I guess the theory is if they can’t ask, they don’t do. Next time you hear one of these rightwing crackpots bellyaching about liberals and nanny government, just laugh in their face.
If you’ve been following the GLBT news outlets lately, you’ve probably noticed that it’s been a particularly violent couple of months for sexual minorities world-wide. And it may have occured to you that violence toward sexual minorities has been getting a bit worse overall lately. It has. And there’s a reason for that.
MADISON, Wis. Wisconsin’s largest gay rights group has won 87-thousand dollars in legal bills over what a judge called a frivolous lawsuit.
The group Action Wisconsin won the award last week over a suit made by Louisiana pastor Grant Storms.
Storms claimed the group defamed him by saying he advocated the murder of gays at an anti-gay conference in Milwaukee in 2003.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Patricia McMahon says the group interpreted his remarks reasonably and the lawsuit lacked merit.
…
According to a transcript of his speech, Storm said opponents of gay rights should take to the streets.
Then he mimicked the sound of gunfire, saying, quote, "Boom, boom, boom, boom. There’s twenty! Ca-ching.
There’s two things you need to pay attention to in this story. First, this is a pastor, not merely a man of God, but a Christian inciting people to go out and kill their neighbors. It is more then obscene, it’s the kind of thing that lit the ovens of the Holocaust. But there is more to it. Consider also, that when he got called on it he not only denied what he did, he took his accusers to court for slander. Now…you could just write that off as tactical indignation, but if you’re brave and feel a little like peeking down into the Pit today…google Grant Storms, peruse the record of his words and deeds, and consider that Storms knew exactly what he was doing when he mimicked the sound of gunfire, and that when he took Action Wisconsin to court, he genuinely believed that he had done no such thing. Orwell had a word for it: Doublethink.
Thought marked by the acceptance of gross contradictions and falsehoods, especially when used as a technique of self-indoctrination: "Doublethink…is a vast system of mental cheating (George Orwell).
This is the final step in renouncing your human identity. This is the end of the road. This is the fee prejudice requires. And you pay it up front, and you pay it willingly. Nobody goes into this with their eyes closed. At some point in his life, reality collided with Storms’ cheap conceits and in order for those conceits to win, reality had to loose. But reality never looses. Storms had to walk away from it, and in the end all he could do was walk away from his human identity instead. That’s what hate demands. You have to give it everything, and eventually you become nothing.
Yah. No…one reason I’ll likely not be going to see Brokeback Mountain is I’m not hugely interested in watching a film about a guy who lets it all slip away, however painfully trapped in his culture’s homophobia he might have been. I would ache to see Ennis’ heartbreak at the end, and I don’t need to be paying money for that ache. And at least I took my chances.
Why I Will Probably Never Make Much Doing Political Cartoons
Oh this is precious…you have to read this post from this post from Tom Tomorrow’s blog, if you’re an aspiring cartoonist, someone like me who is just starting to get their feet wet in the publishing world, or simply a fan of the art of political cartooning.
Now, the thing is, I’ve been down this road a number of times. And this is how it always plays out: a well-meaning art director contacts me. I submit a "rough (which in my case means a completely written cartoon with roughly sketched in art, but since the writing is the hardest part, there’s no way I’m getting anywhere near compensated for my time unless the piece runs — which is why I almost never accept work when the words "kill fee are involved). Even though I am given the impression of a very tight deadline, I won’t hear back for several days, possibly longer — which will leave me obsessively checking my email and mentally juggling my schedule. Then, after the well-meaning art director finally gets a chance to consult with the page’s editors, he or she will come back to me with the inevitable requests for "minor changes" which will somehow undermine, if not completely eviscerate, the integrity of the piece.
Go read the whole thing. You won’t believe what finally happened.
So I ended up googling it, but now I know what a "kill fee is…
For All Those Who Think Aging Hippies Are Such Free Spirits…
I guess I should put up a SPOILER ALERT here. If you haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, or read the short story it’s based on, you might not want to read further for now.
Gene Shalit, who like me, refused to change his hair style decades after it went out of fashion, voiced a little establishment contempt for Brokeback Mountain and gay people on Thursday, proving once again that everything you know about aging hippies is probably wrong, unless you lived through that time in America and saw it for yourself. They called it the do your own thing 60s, the decade of peace love and understanding…or sex drugs and rock and roll if you went to trade school. 1967 was the summer of love, and everyone was feelin’ groovy. But all those good vibrations pretty much only applied if you were a heterosexual.
I was there, I lived through that period of time, that horrible, angry, exhilarating time of backlash against racism, Vietnam, and the stifling conformity of the 1950s, and I am here to tell you that when it came to gays, the hippies, the heads and the radicals could be every bit as bigoted and hostile as Nixon’s silent majority. That faggots were the product of a dying decadent materialistic capitalist imperialist culture seemed at times to be one of the few things the various counter cultures could all agree on. And if it takes a lot of hard brutal painful work to open a closed mind, let me tell you it takes a hundred times that to open a mind that thinks it’s already quite open thank you. And some of them never did. Gene Shalit, who never held a candle to Davey Marlin-Jones, being yet another Case In Point.
Last Thursday, Shalit dumped on Brokeback Mountain, calling it “wildly overpraised, but not by me. But not content simply to let the air out of a film he thought was overpraised he went further, calling Jake Gyllenhaal’s character Jack a “sexual predator, and lamely adding that Jack just didn’t get Ennis’ “implied response ‘Better desolate then never’. This was of a piece with the jackass sheep jokes that peppered his review. But calling Jack a sexual predator for simply pursuing the man he loved, a man who loved him too, is no joking matter. That’s what the religious right, called real life Wyoming resident Matthew Shepard after his murder began making headlines, and it’s how bigots think. When heterosexuals pursue the objects of their affections that’s romance. When homosexuals do the same thing they’re dangerous sexual predators who have it coming. And Shalit, having watched Brokeback Mountain, had to know that Jack Twist ended up being brutally beaten to death for his sexual orientation, like so many gay men were back then, and still are today.
TO: today@nbc.com
FROM: Bruce Garrett
SUBJECT: Gene Shalit Brokeback Mountain Review
What the hell is wrong with Gene Shalit? No…wait…what the hell is wrong with you for letting this dime store bigot review a movie about gay men and homophobia?
And bigot he is. It’s written all over that review. Ennis wasn’t telling Jack “Better desolate then never, he was saying “Better desolate then dead. Christ on a stick! A cinder block could have watched that film, or read the short story it was based on, and comprehended that…but not Shalit. And there’s reason: anti-gay violence doesn’t seem all that unusual or offensive to him. What he finds unusual and offensive is the idea that a gay person might want to try and live their lives as the people they are, despite that violence.
And to call Jack a sexual predator is just spitting in the face of every gay person who ever tried to make love succeed in a world of prejudice and hate. Was Rick Blaine in Casablanca a sexual predator when he tried to pressure Ilsa into leaving Victor for him? Was Slim in To Have And Have Not a sexual predator when she stole a kiss from Steve, just to see if she’d like it? Shalit can only see a sexual predator in Jack, because he cannot see the human being for the homosexual. In Shalit’s world, anti-gay violence should win over love and honest desire, and any gay person who thinks otherwise is a sexual predator. But no…they’re brave and honest about themselves in a way that clearly offends Shalit. That’s how bigots react when they see even the smallest shred of pride in people they think ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Hey…I hear Shalit has a gay son. Well so did Charles Socarides. But Socarides didn’t have the forum to spread his venom all over America that you gave Shalit last Thursday. How many gay sons did he call sexual predators on your show? How many parents now loath their gay sons a little more? How many gay bashers feel a little more justified now, knowing the people they bash aren’t lovers, but sexual predators? You let your film reviewer give gay bashers from one end of this country to another permission to hate, during a review of a film that graphically represents what that hate does to gay people. You let your film reviewer tell your audience that a gay man who was beaten to death with a tire iron was a sexual predator, simply for loving another man who loved him, and insisting that their love had a right to exist. Is that supposed to mean he had it coming? You can be sure that’s the message that was received. Is there anyone working on the Today Show, or at NBC, who has a functioning conscience? Anyone at all?
—
Bruce Garrett
Baltimore, Maryland.
You can watch Shalit’s review yourself via the GLAAD website here. Or use this handy contact info (via GLAAD) to express your feelings about Shalit’s use of the term ‘sexual predator’ to describe a gay man who simply believes the love he shares with another has a right to exist on its own terms:
The Today Show
30 Rockefeller Plaza
Room 380 E
New York, NY 10112-0002.
Telephone:
212-664-4602 [If the viewer comment mailbox is full, ask to speak to someone else]
Fax 212-664-7209.
Boy…There Really Is A Lot Less To You Nowadays Then There Used To Be…Isn’t There?
So you just packed up and left did you? Oh…and without telling her that you were going first? She comes home and you’re gone, and all your stuff is gone, and you never bothered to tell her that you were leaving. Smooth. Damn smooth. Don’t tell me it was your spine that failed you. It was your conscience. You’ve got nerve enough to say it to her face. You just didn’t want to bother. When you babbled to me about how I’m a closed-minded self-centered bore, you were actually trying to dump your own issues onto me, weren’t you? But hey…it’s cool. No…really. It isn’t like I’m not familiar with how gay people have always made handy scapegoats for the failings of heterosexuals.
Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago you were lecturing me about how to keep one foot in the closet for the sake of my own social welfare? Why is it that heterosexuals just seem to assume they’re qualified to tell us gay folk how to live our lives? Tell you what…when I need advice on how to slink out of the house I shared with someone for years like I can’t tell the difference between a one night stand and a long term relationship, I’ll ask you for some.
I haven’t updated here in a bit and the reason for it is deadline pressure at work. I’m doing some software development work for the next generation space telescope (the James Webb Space Telescope) and I have some deliverables due at the end of next week. Between that, the weekly cartoons and the furnace situation (yes…alas it is still a situation…), I don’t have enough hours in a day to share my thoughts here on the blog. But stay tuned, I’m frustrated about something I keep hearing in the right wing media, and even from somewhat rational commentators, about Brokeback Mountain that I need to vent about. It’s the usual blaming the victims of homophobia claptrap and I just want to have my say about it. But it’ll be sometime later today or tomorrow. And I won’t have much else to say I don’t think for another week or so.
I’m really behind on my Coming Out Story too, I know. It’s been a busy couple of months here at Casa del Garrett. If I can get beyond these next few episodes I can get into more of a rhythm on it I think. Please bear with me. A new episode should be up sometime in the next couple of weeks.
This blog is powered by WordPress and is hosted at Winters Web Works, who also did some custom design work (Thanks!). Some embedded content was created with the help of The Gimp. I proof with Google Chrome on either Windows, Linux or MacOS depending on which machine I happen to be running at the time.
