Now I finally know why my Father told me there was no way he was letting me go to College in Boston when I wanted to apply to Boston U all those years ago….
Gay Bashing at the Smithsonian – NYTimes.com
Frank Rich is really on this morning in his weekly New York Times column.
Here’s an excerpt. I encourage you to click the link and read the full column.
It still seems an unwritten rule in establishment Washington that homophobia is at most a misdemeanor. By this code, the Smithsonian’s surrender is no big deal; let the art world do its little protests. This attitude explains why the ever more absurd excuses concocted by John McCain for almost single-handedly thwarting the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are rarely called out for what they are — “bigotry disguised as prudence,” in the apt phrase of Slate’s military affairs columnist, Fred Kaplan. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has been granted serious and sometimes unchallenged credence as a moral arbiter not just by Rupert Murdoch’s outlets but by CNN, MSNBC and The Post’s “On Faith” Web site even as he cites junk science to declare that “homosexuality poses a risk to children” and that being gay leads to being a child molester.
It’s partly to counteract the hate speech of persistent bullies like Donohue and Perkins that the Seattle-based author and activist Dan Savage created his “It Gets Better” campaign in which gay adults (and some non-gay leaders, including President Obama) make videos urging at-risk teens to realize that they are not alone. But even this humanitarian effort is controversial and suspect in some Beltway quarters: G.O.P. politicians and conservative pundits have yet to participate even though most of the recent and well-publicized suicides by gay teens have occurred in Republican Congressional districts, including those of party leaders like Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy.
Has it gotten better since AIDS decimated a generation of gay men? In San Francisco, certainly. But when America’s signature cultural institution can be so easily bullied by bigots, it’s another indicator that the angels Keith Haring saw on his death bed have not landed in Washington just yet.
How ballet changed the world | Need to Know
There’s a new biography out of Diaghilev that I’m dying to read. This makes me even more anxious to get to it….
From NPR…
“The night in May, 1909, when Diaghilev, the impresario, brought his troupe of musicians, dancers, designers, and choreographers to Paris and opened in a theater was the turning point for all the arts. Those brilliant colors and bold rhythms put an end to the paleness and primness of the early part of the century. Nothing has ever been the same since.”
That is Diana Vreeland, fashion designer and style icon, describing the way Ballets Russes took Paris by storm in the early years of the 20th century. When Sergei Diaghilev, a penniless Russian aristocrat, realized he would never be a great artist himself, he decided to become a patron, a collaborator, a catalyst. And through his passion and hard work, he attracted talent like Coco Chanel, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Leon Bakst, Vaslav Nijinsky, to name just a few. Together they created ballets and operas that changed every facet of the art world, from music and dance to fashion and design.
Filed under Entertainment, Gay, Style, Theatre
Elizabeth Edwards ‘A Lighthouse to All of Us,’ Says Daughter Cate at Funeral
Sounds like a fine farewell to a great lady….
RALEIGH, N.C. – Elizabeth Edwards was remembered as a loving mother and loyal friend in a memorial service that acknowledged the turmoil she confronted with “grace and strength,” in the words of her daughter, Cate Edwards. Politicians with headline names joined the public in saying goodbye Saturday at Edenton Street United Methodist Church in this city she called home years before she became a national figure and symbol.
On Tuesday, Elizabeth Edwards, 61, died of cancer. On a gray, rainy Saturday, lifelong friends and family gathered to mourn and remember Edwards’ intelligence, sense of humor and uncompromising attitude. Following her mother’s draped casket into the church, Cate, 28, held hands in a line with her 10-year-old brother, Jack, their father, John Edwards, and sister, Emma Claire, 12.
In her tribute, Cate called her mother “feisty and smart as a whip.” She never held that against people, said Cate, “unless she was right and they were wrong.” She said her mother was a “consistent source of wisdom,” about everything from wearing solid colors to never marrying the first boy you date. (“You would never buy the first pair of shoes you try on.”)
“She’s been a lighthouse to all of us, a point of guidance when we all feel lost,” Cate said of her mother. “Even in her last days, she was comforting us.” She quoted from the letter to her children Elizabeth Edwards had long been working on: “All I ever really needed was you,” it said, “your love, your presence, to make my life complete.”
via Elizabeth Edwards ‘A Lighthouse to All of Us,’ Says Daughter Cate at Funeral.
Filed under History, North Carolina, Politics, The South
War On Christmas Spreads To Lincoln Tunnel : NPR
Interesting article from NPR….
This “War on Christmas” crap normally just makes me tired.
I’m of the “live and let live and go to whoever’s party is best today” school of thinking…Just stay in the moment, enjoy the season and don’t think about any of it too much..
And people really should know by now, it’s a waste of time and energy to argue about religion…
Holidays are time for traditions, and one of the biggest American traditions this time of year is arguing about religion.
Some years, a community is torn over a manger on the lawn in front of city hall or a missing menorah.
This year, the season’s biggest religious controversy is in an unlikely place: the Lincoln Tunnel connecting New Jersey and New York.
For the last three weeks, New Jersey commuters entering the tunnel have had to sit in traffic and contemplate the sight of a billboard with a picture of a nativity scene, a star and three wise men. Its message: “You know it’s a myth,” courtesy of a group called American Atheists.
Drivers can mull over this challenge for the few minutes of purgatory it takes to cross under the Hudson River. Once they make it through the tunnel into New York, however, they’ll encounter another billboard, this one from the Catholic League.
It’s the same nativity scene, but this time with a retort: “You know it’s real.”
Air rage: Is reclining your seat a right? – CNN.com
I can easily answer this question: Hell, No!
The airlines need to remove all reclining seats. I’m sick of someone taking what little space I have on a plane and having to look at their mottled head all the way across country.
Of course, if we taught people better posture and how to behave in public, we wouldn’t be having this conversation….
Of course, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if airlines treated people like people, instead of cargo, and actually gave them space and tried to make them comfortable…
But this is the real world….
(CNN) — The passenger in seat 9C was ready for a nap after takeoff, so he pushed the button on his armrest and reclined — straight into the path of someone who apparently wouldn’t have it.
Tensions grew quickly on the American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Denver on November 22, court papers show.
The incident adds fuel to a debate that seems to divide air travelers into two camps: those who say that reclining their seat on a plane is a right that comes when they buy a ticket and those who believe it’s a privilege that shouldn’t be abused.
As Brian Dougal leaned back on the Denver-bound flight late last month, he felt someone bump his seat, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado.
“Are you serious? My knees are up against the seat,” said the man behind him, identified as Tomislav Zelenovic, according to the complaint.
Dougal suggested that Zelenovic also recline, slide into an empty seat next to him or move his legs to the side. Dougal told the man in 10C that he paid for his seat and was going to recline it.
Zelenovic then shook the back of Dougal’s seat and grabbed his right ear, pulling it back and down with enough force to knock Dougal’s glasses off his face, according to the complaint.
When the plane landed in Denver, police officers escorted Zelenovic off the flight. He was charged with assault “by striking, beating, or wounding on an aircraft” and has pleaded not guilty. Zelenovic’s attorney declined to comment on the case for this article.
Heated debate
Few arguments over reclining seats go that far, but as cabins grow more crowded and cramped, it’s easy to find eye rolling, seething frustration or downright resistance coming from behind travelers who choose to push the armrest button.
Steve Collins, an Australian broadcaster who runs the blog Grumpy’s Getaway Guide, argues that he shouldn’t have to put up with passengers who lean back and invade his personal space.
The secret life of Julian Assange – CNN.com
A little more info about the Man behind WikiLeaks..
He grew up constantly on the move, the son of parents who were in the theater business in Australia.
Now, Julian Assange, 39, on the move for months, was arrested Tuesday in Great Britain in relation to a sex crimes investigation spearheaded by Swedish authorities.
“It sounds like good news to me,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said to reporters who asked him about the arrest.
Since this summer when his Web site WikiLeaks began releasing reams of classified U.S. intelligence, Assange has stoked the ire of top officials like Gates. Politicians and power-players the world over have called for his arrest for exposing sensitive documents. Supporters contend Assange represents free speech at its finest. They say he is a man and an organization committed to outing injustices.
Yet despite unrelenting global media attention, Assange has remained an enigmatic figure. Perhaps that’s because he learned as a child to cope with living a solitary life.
Where are the Republican Scientists? | Mother Jones
Short, very interesting article….
Roughly speaking, though, this doesn’t seem like such a hard question to me. The more time you spend practicing science, the more time you’re going to spend discovering that conservatives hold scientific views that you find preposterous. Sure, liberals have PETA and the odd vaccination fetishist, but really, it’s no contest. In the Democratic Party those are just fringe views. Even the anti-GM food folks don’t amount to much. The modern Republican Party, by contrast, panders endlessly to the scientific yahooism of its base. What would be amazing is if much more than 6% of the scientific community identified with the Republican Party.
Filed under Health Care, History, Politics, Religion, Social Commentary
Is the Payroll Tax Holiday a GOP Trojan Horse? | Mother Jones
This article makes me feel a little better about this…
I’m really worried about the GOP trying to find any sneaky way they can to undermine Social Security…
Part of the Obama tax deal is a small, one-year cut in the Social Security tax rate, and a fair number of liberal commenters are afraid that this is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for Republicans. After all, won’t they just come back a year from now and start screaming that if the cut is allowed to expire it’s a tax increase? Just like they’re doing with the Bush tax cuts? And won’t Democrats cave? And won’t that ruin Social Security’s finances, leading to demands for benefit cuts?
It might. But I think this worry is overblown. Here’s why:
Republicans don’t care about middle class taxes. They care about taxes on the rich. I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll make some noise a year from now about how Democrats are increasing your taxes, but their hearts won’t be in it. They’ll fight to the death over taxes on millionaires, but when it comes to payroll taxes it will just be pro forma partisan kvetching. (And the payroll tax cut expires in a year and isn’t linked to anything else. So it won’t be a hostage to upper bracket cuts.)
This is explicitly a one-year cut. Republicans all assumed that the 2001 Bush tax cuts would be renewed at some point, but no one is assuming that here. And 12 months isn’t long enough for conservative talkers to muddy the water on this score.
The public strongly associates payroll taxes with future Social Security benefits. Demagoguing payroll taxes simply doesn’t work as well as it does with income taxes.
Beltway elites are really, really obsessed with Social Security solvency. For once this will work in our favor. Calls to allow the cuts to continue will be met with almost unanimous establishment condemnation.
December 2011 is far enough away from an election that Democrats can withstand the moderate heat Republicans will put on them over this.
Bottom line: a few Republicans here and there will try to work that old-time tax jihad magic, but it won’t find much purchase. The tax cuts will expire on time with only modest fuss.
POSTSCRIPT: Am I underestimating just how craven and spineless Democratic pols can be? That’s always a possibility! But I don’t think so. In this case, luckily, most of the political incentives line up in the right direction.
via Is the Payroll Tax Holiday a GOP Trojan Horse? | Mother Jones.
Filed under Health Care, History, Politics, The Economy
Lost in the 21st Century 
“The Eight Reindeer Monologues”
If you are looking for some great, irreverent Holiday fun, I strongly suggest “The Eight Reindeer Monologues”, a play by Jeff Goode, at The Broach Theatre here in Greensboro, NC.
I don’t want to give away too much information, but let’s just say Santa may be guilty of sex crimes, Mrs Claus has a bit of a drinking problem and the reindeer have much more distinctive personalities than you may have suspected.
Excellent performances from all four actors-Jordan Hayes, Camilla Millican and especially stellar work from Lee Strickland and Tal Fish.
Go see it…It runs through December 18th. More information at www.broachtheatre.org.
You’ll never think of Santa and Rudolph the same way again..
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Filed under Entertainment, Gay, Greensboro, Holidays, North Carolina, Social Commentary, Style
Tagged as Christmas, Greensboro, Holidays, nc, theatre