who's your best friend?

FAM is coming....

torture is not a family value





for the last month there have been a barrage of articles in the newspaper about the realities of torture by our people, paid for by our taxes, and ordered from up above. there have also been plenty of articles about people jailed since 9/11 but have never been charged with any crimes and/or tried in court. since 9/11/2001

but all these articles have been hidden in the backs of the papers.

it's as if we as a public don't want to hear about it anymore. it's as if it's old news now, since the first news broke about it and since the election. our attitude about torture has now become complacent and disinterested. all the more power then given to those up on high to keep it up. because we don't seem to care anymore.

all of this is the most heart-breaking and soul-punching to this american

new column

Thinking Large and Showing Some Emotion

In just the first month of 2005, we witnessed the following:

1) The National Observance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday with rallies and marches in support
2) The 32nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade with rallies and marches in support
3) The protests and rallies against the presidential inauguration
4) The ongoing protests against the war
5) National GLBT organizations issuing a Joint Statement on priorities
6) A statewide Marriage Equality Summit held here in our fair City
7) A wimpy national opposition to protect Social Security
8) And a myriad of other protests and actions against the death penalty, against Arnold’s state budget, for better education funding, supporting Senator Barbara Boxer’s challenge to Ohio’s electoral votes, against torture and Bush’s choice of Cabinet members, and on and on and on….

Are we working together?

No, seriously, are we working together? Look at that list above. Look at the many different issues. Think not of how they are different, but of how they are the same.

Our opposition is the opposition to all of the above. For, really, we are all of the above. And the opposition sees that and knows that and works on that level.

We work in separate rooms, rarely fighting to protect the whole house because we’re so busy trying to save our individual room. The opposition wants to blow our house down altogether. In the old nursery rhyme about the Three Little Pigs, they were able to defeat the Big, Bad Wolf by being in a house of bricks—but the real story there is that they stopped trying to fight the Big, Bad Wolf individually and worked together to create a home that he couldn’t penetrate.

We need to build a home, an America, that the Radical Religious Right, the opposition to all of the above, can’t tear apart room-by-room, thus blowing the whole house down.

And this all means that we gotta think large. I know, I know, so many times we’ve said things like this before in our movements. But we gotta stop just talking about it, and do it. Because the Big, Bad Wolf’s wind is really strong right now, on all sides of our house.

When the opposition goes to lobby against a bill, or argue a point, or writes a letter, they don’t just talk about these things in a limited view as our side does. They say things like, “I’m a Christian.” “I’m for family values.” “I’m an American.” “The Bible says…” “I believe in moral values.”

What do we say?

“The reason you should oppose this legislation is because it will destroy a fundamental human right and it has been proven that statistically throughout the course of our nation’s history that the American public supports this issue by 50+1% and therefore we should not take lightly the idea that this bill clearly would harm your district’s residents by disproportionately diluting their resources and funding and their children will not have the allocations necessary for….”

See the difference in the above?

We talk intellectually and specifically, and clearly we have won the argument on the particulars of the legislation at hand and clearly sense and reason will prevail.

But, clearly, that’s not reality though. While we’re talking about court reasonings and monetary allocations and historical demographic shifts and whatnot, our opposition talks from the gut. The emotion, whether intellectually and logically sound or not, is real. And that emotion, that gut-level argument, may not win a debate at a university, can easily win politically.

And so where is our emotion? And where is our larger perspective of the issues at hand? Why don’t we say, why can’t we say, why don’t we argue, “I’m for equality.” “I’m for justice.” “I’m for privacy.” “I’m against discrimination.” “I’m for economic and social justice.” "I'm a Christian who cares..."

See the emotion in those statements. See the larger perspective that incorporates our issue and our friends’ issues and the larger issues of democratic values. See how many people we bring into our house and make it stronger when we think large and show some emotion.

These are not everything we want to say, but if we begin to frame our conversations in a larger perspective, rather than pinpointing our individual issues and saying to others that ‘that’s not my issue,’ can we not see how these larger frameworks encompass our issues and all of the above? For really, these are all of our issues when we frame them not just in the specific context but in a larger, emotional, guttural, human context.

And once we begin to create our free, just, equal, private, American home, and protect it, from all sides and all anti-American fronts, our many diverse communities can finally enjoy an equal strength against the Big, Bad Wolf. But, in order to do this, we gotta think large, and we gotta show some emotion.

CHOICE

Save CHOICE-- Save Roe v. Wade
Today is the 32nd Annivesary of Roe v. Wade. Let's celebrate and recommit to our right to privacy. In this crazy right-wing world we live in these days, we can't go back on this fundamental right. It's no coincidence that since Roe v. Wade, women have made great gains in the work world and in politics and in livelihoods and in living their own free lives. And it's no coincidence that we Gay people have found more freedom in our private lives after privacy rights were strengthened in the constitution. Privacy and independence are key to freedom.

this comment from my dc-located-friend martin deserves its own post:

Democracy has fled Washington DC... Everything from Constitution to K Street from 1st NE to 17th NW is in lockdown. No vehicles and pedestrians have to clear metal detectors before going into the area. Signs are forbidden and every building in the area has a sniper on it with a submachine gun.

spent the day yesterday at exploratorium with my niece and a few friends, and ran into other friends, and, as usual, with my niece, as always outgoing and gregarious as she is, met some new ones. anyway, there was a rubik's cube tournament, worldwide international record-breaking tournament, where the best of the best in the world did the rubik's cube in like 15 seconds, and/or in a minute blindfolded, and stuff like that. and as my niece was wont to say, and i heartily agreed, 'i can't even do it in an hours.' so, watching them do it, was pretty amazing.

my niece is here and she's locked herself in the bathroom....
with my cellphone

This (case) is what democracy is all about...

The case of Jose Padilla, the man some of you might remember as the alleged "dirty bomb'' terrorist from Chicago, is so starkly un-American as to seem made up. For the past three years, despite court rulings to the contrary, the U.S. government has continued to maintain that it can keep Padilla locked up for as long as it wants without charging him with a crime, allowing him full access to lawyers or holding a trial. Padilla is a U.S. citizen who was arrested on U.S. soil.

Here's why Martinez took on the case and why we should pay attention to it: If the Constitution doesn't protect Padilla, it doesn't protect any of us.

my niece is coming, my niece is coming!
tomorrow night!

i am not a clean person
i mean, i rarely clean my home. it never seems to be that big a deal. until it really is. and then it really is. and continues to be.
once in a great long while i get the urge. it's rare and i'm overwhelming. but the urge to clean comes up and grabs me and won't let me go. and that rare cleaning period is similar to some people's annual spring cleaning. i clean everything. i move furniture. i clean corners. i do huge cleaning that probably wouldn't need to happen as much if i just did a regular weekly cleaning or something.

but then that would make it a big deal. and cleaning, well, just isn't. anyway, i raise all of this becuase this week has been one of those rare periods. after my cold starting dying down, i just kept wanting to clean the cold out of my house-- what with never being able to open my windows because it's freezing outside, the heater constantly on, and my sickness everywhere. my house felt like it needed a long, hot shower. and since the weekend i've been cleaning up a storm. and i hardly recognize my place anymore. and, of course, my cat hates me. because she doesn't like the cleaning and the noises one bit. but lucky for her, it's a rare event indeed.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?!

i'm standing in line at the grocery store buying milk and staring at the impulse buys/magazines they always have there waiting for you. and i see the cover of people magazine and i'm incensed, yet just aghast at the audacity and complete xenophobic and racist consistency of our american society. over 145,000+ people have died, millions are homeless and destitute and injured, countless numbers of those are children. in asia.

and yet, somehow, amongst all these numbers of children, they found a little blue-eyed, blonde boy to put on the cover. as if that makes the tragedy more horrible to our american society's eyes. as if that makes america wake up more. god forbid they put an asian child on the cover-- well, gosh, i guess that wouldn't translate to magazine sales and america wouldn't get the impact of the tsunami. it just amazes me, once again, at the audacity of our society's continued racism (subtle, yet pure) that our society puts forward every single day. amazing

oh, and p.s., brad and jen broke up, can you believe it? the magazine sales are gonna go through the roof! what other hollywood romances can we build up and then tear down all in the name of ratings and sales? god bless america

i am so sick, sick, sick of this nasty, nasty, nasty (nasty like janet jackson) weather. everyday is rain and cold and rain and cold and dreary cloudy dark skies and rain and cold. rain rain go away

finally, finally, finally, the january newsletter is up. it's been done for weeks, but then, that's another story....

i just haven't had much to say lately, have i

watching old television series that you loved as a kid, with the eyes of an adult, makes you realize that television always sucked. but it seemed so much more magical back when. for christmas my family gave me the first season of wonder woman and the second season of charlies angels on dvd. some of my favorite shows. but watching them now, i realize just how bad they are. good-bad, but still bad. plots don't make sense, it's all about near-naked women for men to leer at, lame jokes, and so forth. well, yeah, i kinda knew that. but then, trying telling that to an under-10yo gay boy who's fallen in love with the idea that women can take on bad men who are doing bad things and being jerks. that's inspiring to a little gay boy who's struggling to figure out how to fit in a masculine culture. so i'm glad to experience these shows again with the magic of dvd, but the magic of the shows themselves lives more in my childhood memories than in the reality of life. but, you know, that's perfectly fine.

this is how i feel about the whole new years thing, with words from my boy, john:

Bobie Doll and Big Jim Picato
Call me up every single day
They don't work and they don't want to
Come on down to some Damn Cafe

Bobie Doll tells me "live in the moment"
Don't get too far ahead - don't live in the past
I blink my eyes and the moment is over
I guess another day has passed

But it's just another day
It's just another day
Watching girls [boys] on the street
Well, that's alright with me
And it's just another day