Category Archives: Social Commentary

September 11, 2010 · 1:40 pm

Chapter 21: A Southern Boy’s Reflections on New York on September 11th | My Southern Gothic Life

A newish post is up on my other blog:

I am blessed to be able to go to New York at least 3 or 4 times a year- for either business or pleasure. I can say, with no shame, guilt or qualification that I love New York. As I have said before, I’ve had my love affairs with London and Paris, but I always come home to New York as my favorite city. It is the most alive place I have ever been.

I know people go to New York to escape where they are from or who they may have been before. That’s part of the magic. Nothing is as it really seems. From Broadway to the Bronx, you create your own reality in New York. But it is always alive and you can’t hide from life in New York. At least not easily.

In other parts of the country, you can isolate yourself. You can’t do that in New York. You can only have so much delivered. You have to go out. And when you go out, life smacks you in the face.

See, one of the reasons New York is both so Democratic and democratic is that you can’t help but interact with people who are different from you. You are all in it–life in New York– together wether you like it or not. You run into a multitude of diversity on the subway. Walking down the block to the bodega on the corner. Sure, each neighborhood is a unique little space, but you still aren’t isolated from the bigger space. This makes you think and understand the people are both different, but the same, and that you need to work together to make life better for all of us.

One of the reasons the South other parts of the country can be so inbred and ignorant of diversity is that it’s so easy in those places to only socialize with “people like you”. That type of isolation can only happen in New York if you are very, very rich. And even then, with the influx of so much New Money, it’s still more diverse than it once was…

That’s why September 11th will always haunt that city. It was a flash point that is still real and raw. New York always goes on and goes forward. Nothing stops New York. But this last trip to New York, I was more aware of how September 11th still haunts the city than I had been in some time.

MORE: Click link below for the complete post.

Chapter 21: A Southern Boy’s Reflections on New York on September 11th | My Southern Gothic Life.

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September 9, 2010 · 7:30 pm

Forget Mehlman — What About Lincoln?

Interesting….This point of view seems to be growing in acceptance.

While the gay media has been awash in unwarranted hosannas over the recent coming-out declaration by former Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman — who has not apologized for running the most homophobic presidential campaign in US history — the LGBT press has been ignoring an infinitely more significant development under way with vastly more important implications for the Republican Party: the increasing acceptance by historians that the loving heart of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator and the first GOP president, found its natural amorous passions overwhelmingly directed toward those of his own sex.

This shifting consensus about Lincoln’s sexual orientation is certainly the most stunning and effective rebuke to the Republican Party’s scapegoating of same-sex love for electoral purposes, which came to fever pitch during the 2004 race that Mehlman spearheaded for George W. Bush.

“We are getting closer to the day that a majority of younger, less homophobic historians will at long last accept the evidence of Lincoln’s same-sex component,” John Stauffer, chair of Harvard University’s Department of American Civilization, told Gay City News, adding, “ We’re already seeing the beginnings of a trend that will amount to a major paradigm shift.”

Stauffer is one of the nation’s leading experts on the Civil War era, and in his latest — and best-selling — book, “Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln,” he supports the thesis that Joshua Speed was, as he put it, “Lincoln’s soulmate and the love of his life.”

And in the latest issue of the scholarly journal Reviews of American History, Stauffer hammers home this point, writing, “In light of what we know about romantic friendship at the time, coupled with the facts surrounding Speed’s and Lincoln’s friendship, there is no reason to suppose they weren’t physically intimate at some point during their four years of sleeping together in the same small bed, long after Lincoln could afford a bed of his own. To ignore this, as most scholars do, is to pretend that same-sex carnal relationships were abnormal. It thus presumes a dislike or fear about such relationships, reflecting a presentist and homophobic perspective.”

via Gay City News > Forget Mehlman — What About Lincoln?.

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September 7, 2010 · 9:14 pm

2010 List of America’s Most Stressed Cities Released; Detroit Is No. 1

From AOL News:

The Motor City is feeling a bit stressed out these days.

Detroit, and its 9.026 stress index, earned the unfavorable honor of topping the Portfolio.com/bizjournals analysis of stress levels in America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas. Los Angeles scored the next highest stress index, with a score of 5.899.

The study looked at 10 factors, including unemployment, income growth, poverty, sunshine, murders and commuting, to determine which cities leave their residents all wound up and which ones offer the good life. Drawing upon 2009 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the organizers analyzed the 50 largest American metro areas and then compared where they scored on those indicators to the national averages. (More information on how the study was conducted can be found here.)

Considering the ongoing dire state of the American job market and the struggling auto industry, the stress that the Motor City is experiencing certainly seems justified.

At No. 3 in the rankings is Cleveland, which has a 5.146 stress index. Possibly that result reflects some vestigial pain from LeBron James’ “decision” to move down to South Beach, Fla., although topping the “Robberies” index with 827.5 robberies per 100,000 residents may be the better explanation.

Here are the top five most stressed cities studied, along with corresponding stress indexes and unemployment rates.

1. Detroit: 9.023; 14.3 percent unemployment

2. Los Angeles: 5.899; 11.6 percent unemployment

3. Cleveland: 5.146; 9.3 percent unemployment

4. Riverside, Calif.: 5.105; 14.4 percent unemployment

5. St. Louis: 4.737; 9.9 percent unemployment

And the five least stressed cities studied:

46. Austin, Texas: -5.183; 7.4 percent unemployment

47. Raleigh, N.C.: -5.249; 8.4 percent unemployment

48. Minneapolis-St. Paul: -6.875; 6.7 percent unemployment

49. Virginia Beach-Norfolk, Va.: -7.859; 7.6 percent unemployment

50. Salt Lake City: -7.949; 7.1 percent unemployment

New York City, the largest metro area studied, with 19.7 million residents, boasts the longest average commute to work, with an average of 34.55 minutes. It came in at No. 6 with a 4.734 stress index.

via 2010 List of America’s Most Stressed Cities Released; Detroit Is No. 1.

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September 7, 2010 · 9:07 pm

Dylan Loewe: Democrats Still Winning the Long Game

I-and a lot of people I know- am concerned about the possibilities of Republican gains this November. Not just concerned, but mad and scared!

This column from the Huffington Posts helps look at things in a longer term perspective. And gives those of us who support a Progressive agenda bright hope for the future.

It’s a longer article than I am comfortable posting in full here, so I encourage you to click the link, after this short excerpt, and read the whole thing. It’s not too long…and well worth reading.

I know what you’re thinking. It feels like things can’t get much worse for the Democrats — and that if it can, it will. We had so much momentum after 2008, so much hope and excitement, and now, as we march reluctantly toward the midterms, it feels like all of our efforts are unraveling. Republicans are poised to ride a wave election, conceivably as large as in 1994, and Exhibit A of their success may well be pronounced “Speaker John Boehner.” How’s that for a shiver down your spine?

But there is actually plenty of reason to be optimistic about the future of the Democratic Party — and the progressive ideals it represents. You just have to be able to look past November to see it.

I know that’s a tall order. In a 24-hour news cycle, in a minute-to-minute blogosphere, looking beyond the next election isn’t so easy to do. It’s not even that easy to look beyond the next news cycle. Go to any website, read any newspaper, and the sense you get is that nothing exists after November. Decisions made today, actions taken by both parties, are seen through a narrow lens. We ask, what will their impact be this fall, without any regard for what their impact will be in the years that follow.

But if you step back, look beyond the current moment, and consider the broader context, you’ll see that Democrats are actually in tremendously strong shape for the long term. What happens this November isn’t inconsequential. But it’s also likely to be a temporary bump on a road toward Democratic dominance.

via Dylan Loewe: Democrats Still Winning the Long Game.

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September 5, 2010 · 11:10 am

The History of Labor Day

Just so we all know what we are celebrating and the history behind this long weekend…

Given the current climate, it all sounds kind of quaint…

From the U.S. Department of Labor Webiste:

Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

…

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

Labor Day Legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

A Nationwide Holiday

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.

via U.S. DOL – The History of Labor Day.

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September 4, 2010 · 4:37 pm

Lisa Birnbach’s ‘True Prep’ for Ultra-Modern Times – NY Times.com Review

Here is an excerpt from the the New York Times Review of “True Prep” and a link to the full review:

In 1980 “The Official Preppy Handbook” arrived as a field guide to the habits of the cotillion-hopping, madras-wearing, loafer-shod upper crust. Was it a valentine, a joke or a prophecy? This much is clear: It began life as a $3.95 paperback and stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for more than a year. Copies were plentiful, yet asking prices for used ones today can easily top $100 and sometimes exceed $1,000. Somebody must think it contains useful information.

When Lisa Birnbach co-wrote and edited it, she was in some ways prescient: the J. Crew catalog wasn’t even a gleam in a marketer’s eye. But much of “The Official Preppy Handbook” just codified widely known information about high-WASP habits and affectations. (It also borrowed from “Take Ivy,” a 1965 style guide published in Japan.) Its original readers, whether they were knowing or curious, were apt to be of boarding-school age or a little older. Now they’re pushing 50.

After the handbook’s huge success Ms. Birnbach helped bring forth a wide array of less necessary titles. (Among them: “1,003 Great Things to Smile About” in 2004 and “40% Off Is the New Black” in 2009.) And the world changed — a lot. Among the post-1980 phenomena with which “The Official Preppy Handbook” could not conjure are the Internet, the McMansion, the cellphone, synthetic fleece and the emergence of famous rehab facilities as today’s new boarding schools.

So Ms. Birnbach has returned to the subject she knows best. Together with Chip Kidd, the graphic designer and writer with the certifiably preppy first name, she has come up with “True Prep: It’s a Whole New Old World,” a surprisingly worthwhile sequel to the now-creaky “Handbook.” This new compendium moves beyond school days to address matters newly relevant for the core readership: how to remarry, how to dress for a funeral and how to deal with the collateral damage caused by decades’ worth of the party-hearty behavior described in the first book.

via Books of The Times – Lisa Birnbach’s ‘True Prep’ for Ultra-Modern Times – NYTimes.com.

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September 4, 2010 · 10:17 am

Beliefs – ChristWire Web Site Mixes Satire, Religion and the Weather – NYTimes.com

Great article in today’s NY Times about Christwire.org, a site I have quoted and linked to frequently. The most popular post was “Is My Husband Gay?”

I love that site and am glad to see them get some good publicity.

Since 2008, ChristWire.org has emerged as the leading Internet site for ultraconservative Christian news, commentary and weather reportage.

“Hurricane Earl Projected Path, Gay East Coast of America,” ChristWire opined on Monday. One headline in late August proclaimed, “Warning! Black Music Infiltrates the Minds of Future Homemaking White Women.” Last week, referring to Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman who came out of the closet last month, ChristWire asked, “Why does Ken Mehlman think that choosing the homosexual lifestyle is more important to him than the Republican values he once held so dear?”

ChristWire has lately reached new levels of popularity, in part thanks to an Aug. 14 column, “Is My Husband Gay?” Written by Stephenson Billings, the piece is a 15-point checklist to help wives detect possibly closeted husbands. “Gym membership but no interest in sports” is one warning sign. So is “Sassy, sarcastic and ironic around his friends” and “Love of pop culture.”

“Is My Husband Gay?” was picked up on The Huffington Post and mentioned by Ryan Seacrest on his radio show; so far it has been viewed 8.3 million times.

Oh, by the way: ChristWire is all one big joke.

via Beliefs – ChristWire Web Site Mixes Satire, Religion and the Weather – NYTimes.com.

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September 3, 2010 · 8:30 pm

DADT hurts military readiness – Roanoke.com

Great Letter to the Editor Featured in today’s Roanoke Times. The Author is my friend and fellow W&L Alum Andy Leonard.

E.A. Leonard

Leonard, a retired colonel for the U.S. Army, lives in Lexington.

Our Virginia senators, Jim Webb and Mark Warner, will have a historic opportunity as early as this month to vote away the insanity we know as the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law and policy. I hope they take it.

In one week alone, we recently were witness to three high-profile examples of why DADT reduces our military readiness and ruins productive careers for no reasons rationally related to qualifications or performance on the job.

First, Army Capt. Jonathan Hopkins was involuntarily discharged under DADT. He was ranked No. 4 overall out of the 933 graduates of his West Point class in 2001 and later endured three difficult tours in Iraq and Afghanistan where he earned three Bronze Stars, one for valor.

Second, Cadet Katherine Miller resigned from West Point and is transferring to Yale. She was ranked No. 9 overall in her class of more than 1,100 cadets. She wrote that in “attempting to adhere to [the DADT policy] and retain my integrity, I am retrospectively convinced that I am unable to live up to the Army Values as long as the [DADT] policy remains in place.”

Finally, Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach filed a last-ditch federal lawsuit to block his imminent discharge after almost 19 years as a fighter pilot. Suffice it to say of Fehrenbach that, in addition to his having earned nine air medals during 88 combat missions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, he was personally chosen to defend the skies over Washington after 9/11.

After spending multimillions of dollars to educate and train these outstanding people, why are we now firing them or forcing them into resigning? I know that I am repeating myself, but the insanity of DADT must be ended, and Webb and Warner have the votes to help make this happen now.

via DADT hurts military readiness – Roanoke.com.

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