Widespread Republican Panic

It's Election Day and the Conservatives in my orbit are in a state of unbridled panic at the thought of an impending Obama victory. After subjecting me to 8 years of Bush, I thought that was kind of funny so I took a picture of them tonight -- you know...just to remember the moment by for posterity. I thought you would enjoy it as well:

Chatting with Gayle King on Oprah & Friends (XM 156)

This is Gayle. And this is me.

Well, this is exciting!
I was listening to the Gayle King Show on Oprah & Friends (XM channel 156, if you are interested in giving it a listen -- it's awesome) this morning on my way in to work and Gayle was talking about the recent airport sex scandal involving Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho -- see previous blog entry for details).

That made my ears perk right up, as you might imagine. So I sent an email to Gayle, sharing with her the IVA website link and pointing out what an odd coincidence it was that, right below the section that honors Sen. Craig for his pro-life stance, there is a "Bonus Byte" about illicit gay sex in airport bathrooms. Makes you go, "Hmmm..." doesn't it?

Next thing I know, I get a phone call from Christina at the Gayle King Show asking if I'd be interested in chatting with Gayle tomorrow about this and whatever else is going on that day. Well of course! What fun -- to talk with none other than Oprah's BFF!











In 2004, I had the pleasure of meeting Marianne Williamson, another one of Oprah's Friends on XM 156. We bought matching peace buttons together. She's an awesome lady.

GOP = Gay Outing Party?

Would it not be simpler for the GOP to just drop all references to the perils of homosexuality in its party platform? The hypocrisy factor has got to be just KILLING them at this point and yet they're still deep in denial about the issue.

Here we go again -- this time with Larry Craig, Republican Senator from Idaho. Taking a look at the Idaho Values Alliance website, found here -- http://www.idahovaluesalliance.com/news.asp?id=481 -- we see Sen. Craig being honored for his ostensibly pro-life stance in weighing in against a stem cell research funding bill. Nothing to see there beyond a photo of Sen. Craig and a blurb about the bill.

The interesting part is what appears in the next paragraph.

A stern warning appears in the "Bonus Bytes" section about the sordid secret of anonymous airport bathroom trysts between gay men (most of whom, I can only assume, are on the DL or they wouldn't be sneaking around in airport bathrooms).

So what did Sen. Craig get hauled in for by the cops?

And to what did he, of his own accord, plead guilty?

Soliciting sex in an airport bathroom (lewd conduct was the specific charge in this case).

What is going on, America?

It seems like every other DAY now there's some high-ranking leader-- either in conservative political ranks or in the religious right -- who's being outed by the police or by a gay lover. And we won't even get into how many Republicans have friends, family members, etc. who are gay and quash all discussion of it if the subject comes up in an interview.

I wish they could just say, "Y'know, the reality is, there are gay people in America. They pay taxes. They are our neighbors, our family members, and our friends. They fight our fires, police our streets, serve (at least while closeted) in our military, and teach in our schools. Heck, they even win election to public office and preach in some of our most conservative pulpits. And whatever God makes of that is God's business, but we are not going to make it OUR business anymore to deprive these folks of their civil rights. We are going to stop criticizing, demonizing, and persecuting this segment of our citizenry. Oh -- and we want to apologize for having done that for the entire prior history of our party."

That way they could have it all -- stay right with God, stop judging and punishing and ostracizing gays and lesbians, and most of all stop making themselves look like self-hating closeted gay idiots. Speaking of which, if someone isn't following Fred Phelps around with a camera and trying to catch him soliciting gay sex, they should be because that man has got to be hiding something...

Better Advice

I need to start writing a column offering Better Advice. There's a lot of advice out there -- legal advice, relationship advice, sex life advice, wedding advice, etiquette advice, travel advice, etc. And a lot of it is reasonable...if not good...advice. I just can't help thinking it could be a lot better.

Take MAXIM magazine's advice for men who are about to initiate a divorce in the June 2007 issue. Now mind you I don't regularly read MAXIM. It was something I ordered for my 16-year-old son, remembering how much I valued my Cosmo subscription when I was that age. That said, I was curious to see how things look from the other side of the gender divide. In this particular column, their first word of advice (courtesy of the founder of the Men's Legal Center in Santa Monica, CA) is to "Take everything you want. It's easier to give something back than to get it later."

Nice. Real nice.

Come now, gentlemen. Whatever happened to taking the HIGH road? A divorce is painful enough without one party drawing first blood with a gesture that says, "I don't think you're trustworthy, and these things matter more to me than our relationship, so I've absconded with them. Good luck getting them back."

I know a woman who left a man who was threatening her life. He had been verbally abusing her for years prior to that. It was not an impulsive decision. It was something she had hoped to avoid by talking to priests, marriage counselors, you name it. But in the end, all other avenues having failed, she left him, her own things, their children, her cat -- everything -- because she was in fear for her life. After she left, he tried to coerce her into returning by threatening to break things that she valued if she did not come back.

It does not take an enormous leap of logic to see how one could go from MAXIM's divorce advice to this scenario, especially when emotions are running high on both sides.

These were things that had been in her family long before this man ever came into her life. She told him he would just have to go ahead and break them. She would not return. Why? Because those things were trivialities compared to the relationship that was broken beyond repair. There was no getting it back. To lose these things would have added insult to the existing injury but they could not have injured her more.

Unless a man has a tangible reason to show such distrust of his wife when it comes to the material things they share, it seems an act of enormous ill-will to
launch a pre-emptive strike by making off with the goods. It's manipulative and controlling, but worse than that, it takes a bad situation and makes it worse.

So here is my Better Advice, and it applies across the board, to both ladies and gentlemen, straight and gay, young and old, married or co-habitating:

1. Be the adult -- or better yet, be the Buddha. If you set the tone in a positive and constructive way, amazing things can happen. At worst you will have a peaceful and uncontentious divorce. At best, you may decide that divorce is not necessary, and that your marriage can be healed. IMO, unless you're faced with a dealbreaker (I have four marriage dealbreakers: Addiction, Infidelity, Commission of a Felony, and Abuse/Severe Neglect), you and your partner have an obligation to relocate the joy you once shared. It's usually there if you both work to find it.
   
2. Consider counseling -- couples and/or family therapy at first, and if the relationship is not salvageable, then individual counseling to help you transition out of the relationship in the sanest and most constructive way possible.
   
3. Remind yourself daily that the most important things in life aren't things. The most important things in life are the intangibles -- not only our connections and interactions with others, but the qualities that make us worthwhile human beings: our self-respect, decency, humility, gentleness, integrity, honesty, and love.
   
4. Let her/him go and wish them well. Really. That can be excruciatingly hard to do at first, especially if infidelity is part of the picture, but hanging on like a bulldog with a bad case of lockjaw will only exacerbate your own suffering. It's a process, and it will take time. Be patient with yourself and trust that you'll get there. Once you begin to let go, you allow your own healing to begin. After all, bitterness is like acid -- it eats at the vessel that contains it.
   
5. Remember that when one door closes another one opens. The ending of this relationship makes it possible for new (and possibly better) relationships to come into your life.
   
6. Be grateful. Every experience carries a lesson, and we garner far more wisdom from our failures than from our successes. The ending of a long term relationship can, if you are open to it, teach you a great deal about who you are, your values and goals, and what type of person you really want to spend the rest of your life with. It also teaches you that you are stronger than you thought...than you can and will endure...that your spirit, like the noble fireweed, can recover and blossom after a devastating burn. That's a lot to be grateful for.

Bonus advice: forget the attorneys and seek out a professional mediator. They frequently cost much less and have no vested interest in dragging out the proceedings the way an attorney might. On the contrary, a mediator's default mode is to seek the most constructive and fair agreement for all involved.

When my ex-husband and I divorced, we were already living physically separate lives. I left and he remained in the house we had shared. I made it clear from the very beginning that I would not fight him for more than shared custody of the children, nor would I fight him for things -- and it is not because we had nothing worth fighting over. Between art, antiques, and various wedding gifts (some from Tiffany & Co.) we could have had many bones of contention. Instead we sat down at a table in a quiet public place with a list of all the things that were his when he came into the relationship, all things that were mine when I came into the relationship, and all the things that we had collected together over the years...and with good will and mutual respect, we went through that list item by item and determined how we would divvy them up. My having taken the high road from the beginning enabled him to do the same. My attitude allowed him to choose a similar attitude with trust and without fear. We managed to mediate things ourselves and I will always be exremely proud of that. It was what was best for us and for our children. And trust me -- that is the only way it happens.

I would respectfully suggest to everyone reading this that, if material things matter more to you than your relationships, then perhaps relationships are not for you. They're not for everyone. They take work, self-sacrifice, patience, and perseverence, and not everyone has that to give to another person.

So, to the gentlemen at MAXIM, I hope you will consider more carefully what advice you are given in the future when it comes to things like divorce. Chances are there are a lot of otherwise nice, decent men out there who read that advice and then made off with the goods before asking for a divorce...and who are now wondering why their soon-to-be ex-wife has morphed into a raging Medusa. Seriously -- what did you expect from advice like that? Peace and harmony?

Of course this is also a magazine that currently displays the Geico caveman in a fashion layout. I suppose we must consider the source...

So, if you need Better Advice than you've been getting up to this point, ask me. I'm here to help.

Political Predictions and Predilictions

I was thrilled to learn that An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar for best documentary. The 2008 Democratic nomination is now Al Gore's for the taking -- all he has to do is ask for it. No longer the wooden caricature of a candidate that he played during the 2000 election, the guy has relocated his backbone and his moral center and can now re-enter the political arena as a superstar, and I predict he'll do it, despite all his protestations to the contrary. If I had to bet money that he'll toss his hat in the ring by a particular time, I'd say it will be by the end of September of this year.

Further predictions:

• Richardson will drop out by the end of summer, as will Biden and Dodd. They just won't be getting enough mo' (money OR momentum) to keep going.
  
  
• Kucinich will stay in to the bitter end to make a point, much like he did in 2000, and I respect that -- I think he has some worthwhile arguments to make in favor of creating a Dept. of Peace. Personally I think he'd make a great President, but I know many in this country find his beliefs too far to the left.
  
  
  Me with Dennis Kucinich at the 2004 Dem. Convention in Boston
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Edwards will hang on with grit and determination fighting for the common man, even if he's running on fumes and a shoestring campaign budget, while Clinton and Obama continue to suck up all the air (and money) in the room.
  
  
• Gore may possibly step to the fore sometime in the HEAT of summer (when the concept of global warming will seem most real and tangible to people, especially those in states where agriculture is a primary source of income) and offer himself as the man with the plan to fix what ails us.
  
  
• Half or possibly more of Clinton's support will defect to join the Gore campaign. I get the sense that many of the people who support her are giving her money, not because they like her and believe in her, but because she is seen by them (however erroneously) as being the most "electable" candidate. They fail to consider that name recognition and a close association with Bill Clinton can be liabilities as well as assets, especially when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of independent red state voters. Plus Gore is just more likeable and approachable. Fact is, Hillary scares the bejeezus out of most conservatives and that fact alone renders her unelectable IMO.
  
  
• Some of Obama's supporters may defect to Gore, if only because they are nervous about having a Republican in the White House for another 4 years. Those folks' loyalty goes to whoever looks like a surefire winner, and Gore's got experience and credibility that Obama doesn't have (at least not yet).
  This is not a reflection of my personal feelings about Obama's leadership abilities, however. I think he'd make a fantastic President...so long as he doesn't invade Pakistan (that disappointed me, I'll admit).
  
  
  Me with Barack Obama at the 2004 Dem. Convention in Boston
  
  Obama would be the obvious choice for VP if Gore starts leading in the polls and I'd wager that Obama would be his first choice for a winning ticket in '08. Whatever Gore does, he won't choose Hillary -- way too much water underneath the bridge in that relationship for them to be a functional team in the White House. To paraphrase Bob Dole: He knows it. She knows it. The American people know it. We all know it.
  

*Gosh* I hope Al runs...

And so long as I'm at it, here is a gratuitous picture of me with Bono. Because I can. And you can't stop me.

Fireweed

For anyone who has ever wondered what on earth "fyrewede" is all about...it's really very simple. It's just a Middle English spelling of fireweed. Fireweed is my favorite flower. I first came upon it when I lived in Juneau, Alaska. It grows everywhere there. It usually comes into its full glory towards the end of summer in August. People in Alaska say you can tell when summer is coming to an end by seeing how far along the fireweed blossoms are in their upward climb on the stem. The closer to the top, the closer autumn is to coming. Fireweed is so called because it has deep and durable roots that enable it to survive a burn. Often is the first flower to reappear after a fire has scorched the land.

But is it *Art*...?

My crusade against the ultra-minimalist mindset of "it's art if the artist (or someone in a museum/gallery) says it's art" is vindicated.

This is what happens when you let just any old thing wear the sacred label of "art."

Now mind you I have no problem with minimalism as a movement. Some minimalist art is *way cool* and clearly took time, thought, effort, creativity, and most important of all -- soul. I'm just saying there is such a thing as "too minimal to qualify as art."

A plain white canvas is just not art. The absence of art, perhaps. But it is not art. And saying "it's artistic to display the absence of something because -hey!- it made you think" is bogus.

Roadkill makes me think too (poor animals!), but that doesn't make it art.

Same with that annoying "Piss Christ" and "room full of dirt" stuff.

Not. Art. Nope.

Merriam-Webster defines art as "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced."

Note the words "skill" and "creative imagination."

No skill + No use of creative imagination = No art

A white canvas requires no skill beyond a sophomoric "Hey! Watch me pull the wool over MoMA's eyes with this one, guys!" Would love to know how much that guy won in that bet...

Fact: A rock and a stick are not art. Things to put art *on*perhaps. But (unless carved or sculpted somehow) they are not art.

Witnesseth this fact at work in the amusing news anecdote below below...
================================================
"Art gallery loses its head, displays plinth"

Thu Jun 15, 9:11 AM ET

One of Britain's most prestigious art galleries put a block of slate on display, topped by a small piece of wood, in the mistaken belief it was a work of art.

The Royal Academy included the chunk of stone and the small bone-shaped wooden stick in its summer exhibition in London.

But the slate was actually a plinth -- a slab on which a pedestal is placed -- and the stick was designed to prop up a sculpture. The sculpture itself -- of a human head -- was nowhere to be seen.

"I think the things got separated in the selection process and the selectors presented the plinth as a complete sculpture," the work's artist David Hensel told BBC radio.

The academy explained the error by saying the plinth and the head were sent to the exhibitors separately.

"Given their separate submission, the two parts were judged independently," it said in a statement. "The head was rejected. The base was thought to have merit and accepted.

"The head has been safely stored ready to be collected by the artist," it added. "It is accepted that works may not be displayed in the way that the artist might have intended."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060615/od_nm/britain_sculpture_dc;_ylt=Ap89nEhLt2pFnyJ5XDmfYrXtiBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Uncle Sam Wants YOU!

That's right -- you can stop looking around. I'm talking to YOU.

Republican, Democrat, Green, Independent, I don't care. Your country needs you to answer the call.

A call to arms, you ask? No, no...the call to serve in public office.

I know, I know - "Eww," you say, decent upstanding citizen that you are, "I couldn't do it. Soil my pristine soul shaking hands with those slimebags? Never. I'll leave that to the manipulators, weasels, and corrupt dirtbags of the world."

Fine. I hear you. It's something I said for years and years and years until I really started thinking about what that attitude has bought me thusfar, and where it will leave us 50 years from now (with a special thanks to Kate Coyne-McCoy of Emily's List for opening my eyes in that regard). Now I charge you to think about it.

If only the palm-greasers and back scratchers run for office, what kind of government will we have?

We deserve better don't you think?

Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives Gaye Symington said something very wise at this year's State Democratic Convention and I am paraphrasing her loosely here (if anyone has the exact words she used, please forward them on to me) - she said, "Do not trust your democracy only into the hands of those who are naturally drawn to politics."

Look at what doing so for the past 25 years has bought us, especially at the national level. Vice, graft, divisivness, hypocrisy - enough already! Haven't you had enough? I know I have.

We do not need any more career politicians, movie stars, and billionaire playboys running for office. What we need are more nurses and firemen, day care providers and teachers, stay-at-home parents and construction workers, and (dammit!) ordinary Janes and Joes. People who have been out there living life, up to their elbows in the muck of reality struggling to make ends meet, whose life choices and decisions have been centered around supporting their family and their community, not on what would be most politically expedient or financially rewarding.

If all of us regular Joes and Janes get involved -- serve on the school board or run for the Senate, it matters not -- then regardless of Party affiliation, we'll end up with a government worthy of our attention and loyalty (and the world's respect) once again. It IS possible. But only if you become the change you wish to see in the world around you -- you set the tone and, if the fire is in your belly, lead the charge so that others like you can follow.

Calling Mr. (or Ms.) Smith. Like it or not, Washington needs you.

NOW.

"Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask. Get up there with that lady that's up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won't just see scenery; you'll see the whole parade of what Man's carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That's what you'd see. There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again!" -- Jefferson Smith, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

The Day After

"Are you okay?" a well-meaning Republican friend asked me in a recent email.

I'm almost afraid to reply right now for fear of the pure unadulterated vitriol which would no doubt issue forth.

I am definitely NOT okay today.

I've been in tears of frustration and sadness off and on all day.
Even *Tom DeLay* won -- one of the most unabashed corrupt partisans in our government's history. And he won courtesy of his own malfeasance and deception. And no one can do a damn thing about it. The man should be *impeached*. And there is nothing we can do about it.

I really should stop.

I'm just so, so, so very hurt and angry and sad right now.

The feeling people like me get from those who voted for Bush, especially social conservatives who favor an authoritarian "strict father" form of leadership, is that this is "their" America, and in their opinion, those of us who want a "nurturing parent" government -- where tolerance and fairness, peace and diversity matter more than authority and strength and consistency-to- the-point-of-foolishness -- don't belong here and should move if we don't like having intrusive fear-based right-wing policy and religion shoved down our throats.

I've even gotten nudges like that from Republican family and friends at times, and it hurt. A lot.

Y'know, this is MY COUNTRY TOO. I love it and I AM a patriot and no one will ever tell me I am not. And I don't want to have to leave it just to get *basic* basic things like affordable health care, a clean environment, and a fiscally responsible government that doesn't practice corporate welfare in the form of HUGE tax cuts to big businesses and the wealthiest 1% of the population while throwing $300 'candy bar' refunds to the rest of us. Meanwhile college tuition goes up $5000, gas prices skyrocket, and health care costs soar (and benefits are cut).

Where is that $300 now, Republican friends?

What happened to the America we were raised in?

An America where *all* faiths (or no faith at
all!) were welcomed, respected, and protected, with not even so much as a hint of preference or favoritism given to one over the others.

What happened to the concept of American world leadership -- where we always took the high road...set the tone...were the shining example of restraint and democratic fairness the rest of the world sought to emulate?

What happened to "liberty and justice for all"? Because I don't think this Administration embraces that. I think they only want liberty and justice for some...usually those who think like they do.

Now we are laughingstocks and buffoons, even in the eyes of nations who were once our most loyal friends.

And what ever happened to the notion of a God who loves *all* of us -- who is above petty earthly politics -- and who wants us to reach out to each other in a spirit of peace and brotherhood?

Whatever happened to ALL Christians understanding the meaning of "love your enemies"?

Why do so many conservative Christians seem to verge on denying that Jesus even said it in their fervor to embrace the Old Testament God of wrath and vengeance. Oh but let's not go so far as to also embrace polygamy...for some reason even though one could cite chapter and verse from the OT to justify it, polygamy is "not OK" except in some of the fringe elements of the Mormon church.

Y'know, I could almost stomach that if the people who want to pick and choose anti-gay and anti-feminist dogma from Leviticus, etc. could just stand up and say they're picking and choosing rather than insisting that their version of "what matters and what doesn't and how it applies to us here today" is the ONE TRUE version ... and everyone else is going to burn, burn, BURN in Hell for all eternity.

That is not a God I could ever worship.

If God is, as so many devout conservative Christians have often insisted, the definition of Love, of Compassion, of Forgiveness...then there is no room in there for one select group to be The Only Ones Who Got It Right. That's not loving or compassionate.
I probably should have stopped writing long ago, but this is what's been building up inside me for months now.

Pardon my catharsis.

I think one of the things I despise most about Bush is that he has separated me from my best friend and from my own brother with his smug, arrogant "If you ain't with me...well, yer wrong!" attitude.

Bush is not a uniter, he IS a divider.

I weep for this nation and for the world. I cringe at the thought of what Bush's first Supreme Court appointment will be.

And, odd though it may seem, I pray for the health and healing of Justice Rehnquist, for I truly fear his replacement will make him look like a latte-sipping liberal atheist.

I'm not sure where this leaves us. I don't anticipate that my feelings about Bush (that he is a corrupt ideologue -- a fake Christian and a child of privilege who has had everything handed to him without ever really knowing what it means to serve others...or to be in danger or in want...and worst of all he is a lying moron incompetent to run even a baseball team, let alone a superpower nation) will ever change.

I miss having respectful discussions with friends on the other side of the political fence...discussions where we always knew, at the end of the day, that we were equally American, equally patriotic, equally loyal, and equally loved by God. I want to have those discussions again.

I just cannot promise I'll be able to remain silent about what is going on in our government. This is my country too, and I am afraid of what is happening to it.

Even staunch Republicans I know have acknowledged that there needs to be balance -- now we're going to have 8 years in a row of Republican domination of ALL THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. There ARE NO CHECKS AND BALANCES anymore, and I fear we are in for a disastrous dispensationalist-driven MAJOR war in the Middle East on top of a depression that will make 1931 look like the Golden Age of American finance.

Half of America doesn't think like Bush. But by God he's going to continue to govern as if it does.

And the level of seething resentment I and others like me feel in response to that is not going to go away unless he makes some MAJOR changes to the way he's been governing.

Let's not forget, however, that Bush is Mr. Steady Leadership so... don't anyone hold their breath on that one.

Dean in 2008. Because HE understands that this land is your land AND my land...and wants us ALL to know we have a home here.

Maiden Voyage

This being my maiden voyage into the blogosphere as a blogger rather than one who comments on other blogs, I'm somewhat at a loss for words. (blush) Be gentle. I'll come up with something more substantive after the Red Sox have won the WS, and Kerry has won the election. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm just not in spitting distance of it quite yet.