Pen and Ink

Oval Office post mortem.

President Obama's Oval Office address on the BP oil spill is old news by now, but this posting has been stuck in my head. I need the space in my brain, so I'm letting it loose.

I was out at a meeting, so I didn't even get to see the address, but two things pre-and post-speech drove me crazy.

First there was the Republican "prebuttal" to the speech.  Man, I am so fuckin' tired of those assholes. What is it with these people?  Obama was elected, McCain wasn't.  Give the guy his due and let him do his job. But no, they can't. Obama's talking about the oil spill. I'm surprised the Republican's aren't denying that there even is such a thing.

Then during his speech, Obama made a call for attention to renewable energy sources, using the oil spill as a "See, I told you" moment.  Of course, he was criticized for using the tragedy to make a political statement.  Well, duh.  Any smart person would have done the same thing.  If we, as a country, turned our incredible intellectual resources toward developing and marketing affordable renewable energy sources, we would be ruining our planet, it's ecosystem, and the economies of the states affected.

Love them evangelicals.

I interrupt my regularly scheduled "first post of the new year/what I want to accomplish in 2010" piece to talk about something different.

Last evening, willing myself not to think about my first day back at work after two weeks, Andy and I settled in (under comfy blankets given the cold snap in South Florida) to watch season three of The Tudors, newly released on DVD.

If you haven't seen it, The Tudors is a lavishly produced historical fiction series on Showtime about the reign of English monarch Henry VIII (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers). It's graphic in its presentation of extremes -- brutal murders and rampant sexual goings on.

Driving to work this morning, still rebelling against the idea of work, I thought about the four episodes I viewed last night. The drama draws the viewer in, even when you may not particularly like the people the actors portray.

My mind focused on the hypocrisy of the time. While the writers and producers do take a little liberty with the timing of the events and even the compositions of some of the characters, what I do think they honestly portray is the brutal nature of the church -- both the Roman Catholic church and the newly-formed Church of England. While purporting to be deeply pious, Henry orders beheadings and hangings by the score. Even the pope, in an early episode, asks, "Why doesn't someone kill the whore?", referring to Henry's mistress and eventual wife, Anne Boleyn.

Even their adherence to sexual mores are questionable. With his wife pregnant with his son (finally!), Henry cheats with one of her attendants.

I would like to think that as a society, we have progressed in our moral values. To be sure, many have. Hopefully, the Roman Catholic Church is not still ordering the death of people who dare to disagree. And I don't think Queen Elizabeth has had anyone beheaded lately.

But silly me.  Perhaps we haven't come that far.

Take a look at the front page of the New York Times today, right below the fold: "After U.S. Evangelicals Visit, Uganda Considers Death for Gays."

It seems as though three of our country's high and mighty holy rollers -- Scott Lively, (a "missionary);" Caleb Lee Brundidge (a self-described gay man who leads "healing seminars), and Don Schmierer (a board member from Exodus International (oh please)) -- traveled to Uganda to give a series of talks on "the gay agenda -- that whole hidden and dark agenda."  Three days they spewed their venom. The visitors, according to the Times, "discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how 'the gay movement is an evil institution' whose goal is 'to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.'"

In the audience were thousands of police officers, teachers, and national politicians.

One month after the conference (one month!) a Ugandan politician, who allegedly has ties to evangelical friends in the American government, introduced a bill that threatens to hang homosexuals.

David Bahati, Ugandan lawmaker

Of course the three are backing away from their involvement in the matter.  I love what Schmierer said: "That's horrible, absolutely horrible. Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people."

What these three have done, according to the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover to chronicle the relationship bewteen the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals, "is set the fire they can't quench."

I guess we haven't come as far as I would like. I wonder if some years hence, Showtime will make a series about the truth behind the evangelical movement.  If so, they should be portrayed as the immoral thugs they are, just like the church leaders in Henry's day.

Idiots running amok.

It's been a week since I returned home from two weeks in the Mediterranean and I can't believe this is the first time I've been able to blog. 

As soon as we got home, I got sick with some intestinal thing. I suspected it could be a parasite, but it went away completely yesterday.  There was also the yard. I have someone who helps me with the gardens. He was supposed to do a lot of work while we were gone, but he never came by. Something about ghosts in his house. 

But here I am.  There's so much to talk about.  Italy, Egypt and Greece with lots of pictures to share.  Patti Lupone, who performed on our cruise, and the new tv season, including the new guilty pleasure Glee.  There's my friend Sheila who does amazing things, and the unbelievable passing of one of the most creative people I've ever met.  I want to talk about my birthday and about the fortune cookie I had at P.F. Changs tonight.  And then there are my sorta-kinda "step kids" (I can't believe I'm even writing those words).

I'll get to that in the coming days.  But there was something in the Miami Herald today that warrants a little rant.

I'm embarrassed for the little city -- Oakland Park -- in which I live.  A local chef noticed a small group of homeless gathering in one of the city's parks.  The chef, out of the goodness of his heart and at his own cost, started serving them breakfast. 

The yokels nearby started to complain. Now you have to understand something.  These outdoor breakfasts take place in a somewhat residential area.  One side of the park where this takes place -- across the street, actually -- is residential.  Immediately abutting the park are some wherehouses and some electrical lines.  Across another street is another park. 

City officials came down on the guy, telling him he needs a permit. He can do four events a year for free.  For the other 361 days of the year, he will have to pay.  The cost is $900 per week!

The yokels and the city should be ashamed of themselves.  Because we're not talking about hundreds of people.  No, not at all.  There's only a dozen or so.  A DOZEN! 

How embarrassing. 

I'm still mad.

I can't shake this anger I have about the passage of the hate bills in California, Florida and elsewhere.

This piece on NPR this morning got me going again. In it there are quotes from one of those right wing, whack job ministers. This time it's someone named Frederick Price Jr. of the Crenshaw Christian Center.

This hateful guy says that his church's support of Proposition 8 is "based on the book of laws...we live by. It was important to vote for Proposition 8 to preserve the sanctity of marriage."

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, this country is supposed to be founded on a separation of church and state. His "book of laws" may be his his, but it's not mine. And it's not for hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other people. 

This crackpot has no business preaching his brand of hate. Churches (if you can call his that) are supposed to be non-profit organizations as determined by the IRS. They are exempt from paying taxes. They are not supposed to be engaged in politics.  Why doesn't the IRS go after these morons?

How to win a debate. Or not.

Let's clear this up.

This election cycle, I'm kinda confused. Let's see if anyone can clear this up.

First, If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic' and 'different.' But if you grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're an American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Yet if you name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, and you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.  Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, then you're well-grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, help register 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, 8 years as a State Senator of a district of 750,000 people, chair the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people, sponsor 131 bills, and serve on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works, and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

However, if your resume is:  local weather girl, 4 years on the city  council and 6 years as the mayor of a town of 7,000 people, 2 years as governor of a state of 650,000 people, you're qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 daughters, all within Protestant churches,  you're not a real Christian.  But if you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, left your ill wife, and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the use of birth control, you erode the fiber of American society. On the other hand, if you staunchly advocate abstinence-only education, while your teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, you don't represent America's family values.  But if your husband is called 'First Dude', has a DWI conviction, didn't register to vote until 25, and was a member of a group that advocated secession of Alaska from the USA, yours is the quintessential American family.

And, finally, if you're famous for your quick temper, you're the one to have your finger on the red nuclear button. (Or is that nucular?)

Too stupid for words.

Bernardo sent me this video from YouTube. It's too good not to share. Please tell everyone about it.

A fitting departure.

Ah, the Fourth of July. Our nation's birthday, the day we declared our independence from England. The day we celebrate all that this country stands for, most importantly the belief that all people are created equal.

How fitting that one of our nation's most virulent bigots, Jesse Helms, should die today.

This from the AP:  "It's just incredible that he would die on July 4, the same day of the Declaration of Independence and the same day that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, and he certainly is a patriot in the mold of those great men," said former North Carolina GOP Rep. Bill Cobey, the chairman of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C.

A patriot?  A PATRIOT?

This man personified hatred.  His hatred for us LGBT folks and those living with HIV/AIDS is legendary. It's fitting that he should die today. In these dark days in our nation's history, his death is a bright light, brighter than tonight's fireworks, a symbol that perhaps better days are ahead.

Good riddance!

Eyes shut.

The Times had an article on Saturday that said that just over 10% of homeowners in the United States have mortgages that are higher than their homes are currently worth.

That's an astounding number and I'm happy that I'm not one of them.

I'm no economist, but I have to wonder: Didn't anyone see this coming?

The housing market throughout the country has been out of control with prices climbing higher and higher. Here in South Florida, developers have been building and building to a point that people are walking away from deposits on the thousands of newly-built condo in downtown Miami and littered along the coast.

Everything is cyclical. It's a basic fundamental law of economic physics, if you will.

So where was the government throughout all of this?

They're all hot and bothered about trying to jump start the economy. They're sending $600 checks to millions of people who will use them to pay their heating bills or put gas in their cars because oil prices have skyrocketed. Those checks will do nothing for the economy.

So I repeat the question: where was the government. Did no one predict this?

I asked this while out to dinner with Cary and John the other night. Cary replied, "Bush was focused on his war, and nothing else."

He's right. And as I've long maintained, history will look back on this president and his band of thugs with derision. And rightly so.

And history will ridicule us all if McCain is elected president.

It didn't take long.

Well, you know it had to happen. The whack jobs are starting to crawl out of their caves to bash Heath Ledger for his role in Brokeback Mountain. It's no surprise that one of those caves has "Fox News" scratched into the stone above the doorway. Consider this call to action posted on the GLAAD website.

In the wake of Heath Ledger’s death, people around the world are mourning the gifted actor’s passing and are expressing their appreciation for how he changed hearts and minds with his Oscar-nominated role as a gay cowboy in 2005’s Brokeback Mountain.

In a stark and disturbing contrast, Fox News Radio host John Gibson cruelly mocked Ledger’s death and his role in Brokeback Mountain during his Jan. 22 John Gibson Show radio broadcast.  During the show, Gibson played an audio clip from the film of Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jack, telling Ennis (played by Ledger), "I wish I knew how to quit you." Gibson then coldly quipped, "Well, he found out how to quit you."  Then, after playing another audio clip from the movie of Ledger’s character saying, "We're dead," Gibson mockingly said, "We’re dead" and played the clip again.

“Gibson’s remarks are vulgar and disgusting,” said Rashad Robinson, GLAAD’s Senior Director of Media Programs. “It’s sickening that Gibson would exploit Heath Ledger’s tragic death to promote such hurtful intolerance. And to do so at a time when family and friends are grieving shows a level of insensitivity that is beyond the pale.”

  Beyond his mockery of Ledger’s role in Brokeback Mountain, Gibson called the actor a "weirdo" with "a serious drug problem," and callously speculated on the reasons Ledger might have committed suicide.  Gibson had previously mocked Brokeback Mountain--calling it a "gay agenda movie" on his Fox News TV program in 2006.