Month: July 2001

I cannot be the only one to have been nauseated by the sight of the two Bushes, pere and fils, careening about on a golf-cart wearing matching baseball caps, emblazoned with the numbers “41” and “43”. That picture must have appeared in countless papers across the country, as well as television. Did Howell Raines coordinate the shoot? Nothing could be better used to depict the Bushes as smug, aristocratic, out of touch, and callow. The self-congratulation of it all is the first truly irritating moment of this presidency. And some Bushies wonder why their man seems to growing numbers of Americans as ‘out of touch’ with their lives. Gee, I wonder why.

HE’S BACK!: Tan, rested, and ready. Well, tan anyway. Thanks for giving us our biggest daily readership ever last Monday. Sorry I was on the beach. Back now for the duration.

MORE GOOD NEWS ON AIDS?: Fascinating story in the New York Times on HIV in prison. I’ve long felt that this is one of the most crucial areas for intervention. Because unprotected male sex is relatively common in prisons, because no-one will admit this, and because prisons also hold disproportionately more black and underclass people than the population in general, prisons have the potential to be the bath-houses of the next decade for HIV transmission. So it’s a surprise to me that deaths from AIDS have been plummeting in prison as well. Deaths were over 1000 in 1995 and in 1999 were down to 242. More significant is the number of people with HIV. Despite an increase of close to 20 percent in the prison population in the last four years, HIV rates have only increased by 6 percent. What the story doesn’t say is whether HIV testing is routine for all prisoners. If it is, these numbers are reassuring. If not, they mean not so much. The only thing certain is that the AIDS lobby will be furiously denying any such progress.

THE CONDIT CONUNDRUM: I haven’t mentioned the grotesque invasion of Gary Condit’s privacy by the media hounds for an obvious reason. Anything I write merely piles it on. Yes, I know his friend, Chandra Levy, is missing, presumed dead. And obviously in a matter of a very serious possible crime, chasing every possible lead is important. But the relevance of Condit’s relationship with Levy is still entirely questionable. Until Condit is charged, or even named as a suspect in Levy’s disappearance, his relationship with this young woman is entirely his business. She didn’t work for him; she was a grown woman when they met; Condit has cooperated with the police about what he may or may not know about her whereabouts. Yes, it’s suspicious in some ways – and if he’s named a suspect, all bets are off. But suspicion without evidence shouldn’t be a means to simply trample through this man’s marriage, privacy and sex life. A D.C. reporter even told me a few weeks ago that, “Trust me; her head is in his freezer.” Proof? Evidence? Never mind. This is the twenty-first century; and this is what we now call journalism.

HATHOS ALERT: “What does the Fourth mean to you, Mr. President?” was the hardball question thrown at George W. Bush this week, as he visited the Jefferson Memorial in search of ordinary citizens and a photo op. The answer: “Well, it’s an unimaginable honor to be the president during the Fourth of July of this country.” Or, as Mel Brooks might put it (and has): “It’s good to be the king.” Mr. Bush’s response was a perfect summation of the man we’ve seen in office so far: The Second Boomer President, a narcissist who can’t see past himself.” – Frank Rich, New York Times, Saturday. Huh? Just how does an expression of feeling honored to be president count as a summation of narcissism? The questioner even asked the president what the holiday meant to him. Is Frank Rich, a boomer who just wrote a book about his own childhod, trying to compare Bush to Clinton on the narcissism scale? Keep digging, Frank.

THIS BUD’S FOR THE BRITS: Odd that it should start in Britain. But in the last few weeks, you can feel a turning point coming in the West’s response to marijuana. Last year, calls by Tory spokeswoman Ann Widdecombe to toughen up prosecution of pot use was greeted with derision by many of her fellow Tories. Several former cabinet ministers said they had used the drug. Last week, a key senior conservative, Peter Lilley, said that pot should be made legal, period. Now, the Guardian reports that the Blair government has essentially instructed the police to stop searches and seizures of pot to concentrate on more hard-core drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. Is sanity breaking out? Someone should alert John Walters.

NOT IN MY BACK-DUNE: A scourge is affecting the Upper Cape. People on remote dunes and beaches are pulling the Full Monty. Imagine. In Provincetown, long a haven for artists, painters, writers, hedonists, bohemians, and freaks (God bless them all), some punters have been known to be bathing nude. Two days ago, I observed two uniformed cops patrolling the furthest dunes on Herring Cove beach for any signs of nudity. This is quite an effort. It was a warm day, there are no footpaths, it can take over an hour on foot to some of the furthest beaches. But there the cops were, spending my money to chase down harmless skinny-dippers and dune-canoodlers. Meanwhile, the local morals police have delivered several “Cease and Desist” orders to a cabaret show called, “Naked Boys Singing.” This export from off-off-Broadway is at the Crown and Anchor in Ptown. The prohibition attempt was prompted by some patrons who were shocked upon entering a show called “Naked Boys Singing” when they saw naked boys singing. (Attention Mary Eberstadt: they were all well over 21.) Then on the front-page of the Cape Cod Times is yet another skirmish, waged by a couple who own a sweet little dune shack that happens to be perched near a beach recently designated okay for nude bathing. My favorite quote is from the couple’s lawyer fighting the new law: “I am a ’60s liberal. There is nothing wrong with nude sunbathing. But you don’t have to be nude in my face.” In my face? The dune shack is a whole dune away from the beach; the intervening dune is off-limits to the public for piping plover nesting; it takes two hours hiking through the National Sea Shore (all roads are closed to protect the piping plovers) to make it to the sandy den of vice. I would think a ’60s liberal might actually give any nudie who’d walked a couple of hours in the sun to get to a beach a lemonade and a joint. But what do I know? I’m just a ’90’s conservative.

“The toughest, most uncompromising words I’ve read anywhere lately are in the spring issue of Dissent. In an issue devoted to strategies for dealing with the coming four years of Dubya rule, Philip Green confesses to having no appetite for such strategies. “What attitude,” he asks, “should the inhabitants of a conquered province have toward their conquerors? In Vichy France, for example, I doubt that the left cared in the slightest about Marshal Pétain’s views on old-age pensions, labor unions, soil erosion in the Dordogne, the rights of Algerian immigrants or any similar issues of ‘public policy’ that might have existed at the time.”” – Charles Taylor, on Marshal Bush in Vichy America, Salon.

I REPRINT, YOU DECIDE: Two emails taking different approaches to the deeper issue of global warming. What do we do when we don’t know exactly what the causes of such a phenomenon are but nevertheless feel compelled to act to avert a potential (but not proven) disaster? Take your pick: “I feel compelled to add my two cents about the NYTimes piece you mentioned in Tuesday’s Dish. My background: Up until two months ago I worked for NASA designing and building satellite sensors to monitor climate and atmospheric chemistry from space (I now do much the same thing in the private sector). In my job, I interact regularly with scientists who develop and run the climate models mentioned in the Times article. Most of the scientists I’ve met are absolutely a-political on global warming – they want to know the facts. Looking at the facts, the vast majority of these scientists have concluded that global warming is occurring. There are, however, vast disagreements over the magnitude of global warming and its cause, whether it’s origin is a natural phenomenon or anthropogenic (human-induced) – probably some combination of the two. And this is related to the uncertainty in the climate models that the Times discusses. The basic premise of the article was absolutely correct – we’re not sure how severe global warming will be because the models have large uncertainties. That’s why I think continued research (necessarily government-funded) into climate change is vital (besides keeping me employed). Because of that uncertainty, isn’t it wiser to assume the worst case scenario (a CONSERVATIVE approach) and take steps to mitigate the effects of global warming?”

On the other hand:

“I am reminded of an anecdote I read once regarding the London Plague. It seems that some astute soul had noticed that wherever there were a lot of cats, there was a greater intensity of the plague. They therefore decided to eradicate the cats. Of course the observation was a valid one, its just that the conclusion was erroneous and in fact eliminating the cats increased the plague. The cats were of course attracted to the rats which were in fact the real vector of the disease. The conversation cast in modern terms might have gone like this. Look, we know that wherever there are cats there is more plague. The people know this as well since we have told them so. They WANT us to eradicate the cats, and every day we waste means more people will die. If we wait, there is no telling how many people will die needlessly. Since we know cats play a role, we must start now. We don’t need to know what exactly the role is, we already know enough, and besides cats are a problem anyway, what harm could it do?”

“So even as the evidence grows that earth’s climate is warming and that people are responsible for at least part of the change, the toughness of the modeling problem is often cited by those who oppose international action to cut the emissions of heat-trapping gases.” – from a story on the science of global warming in today’s New York Times. Has it occurred to the Times that this sentence (which reads like it was plopped in by some meddlesome uber-editor) has it backwards? Perhaps some scientists are actually scientists, i.e. they simply don’t accept something as proven until it has been proved. The ‘toughness of the modeling problem’ requires no political agenda to cast doubt on the science of global warming – but the Times has to discredit such skepticism as fueled by politics. Later on in the (actually very helpful) piece, we find out that “a small change in the way droplets form could have a large impact on the climate, said Dr. Jenkins, in Britain. He said that Dr. Anthony Slingo, another scientist there, found a decade ago that in theory, a decrease or an increase in the size of water droplets of just 10 or 20 percent “could either halve or double the amount of climate change you’d get.”” Wow. That’s a huge variation – of which we now know nothing. The only thing here that’s really fueled by politics is the Times’ editing.

THE TIMES RATCHETS UP ITS BIAS II: “Though the Bush administration has now agreed to reopen talks with North Korea, it has set demands far broader than those pressed by President Bill Clinton, raising the prospect of protracted negotiations while Pyongyang continues to sell missiles around the world.” – from the Times today. How’s that for both sides of the issue?

BIG GAY AL IS NOT A LEFTIST: A great sign of the declining power of the gay activist left is that their ungainly rhetoric and authoritarian politics isn’t cutting it any more with most homosexuals, especially those who actually have lives and a sense of humor. Exhibit A is South Park, a truly genius comic creation on Comedy Central, and a recent movie that was easily the funniest and most shocking for a decade (in one scene it had Satan flying a Rainbow Flag hang-glider). Now South Park does the Boy Scouts and Big Gay Al, the homosexual character, comes out swinging in defense of the First Amendment. Although Big Gay Al is thrown out of the Scouts (replaced by a heterosexual pedophile), and even though the kids sue to get him reinstated, BGA declines the honor. Here’s his speech, every word of which rings true to me: “”Look, I appreciate what you kids did. I really do. But this isn’t what I wanted. I’m proud to be gay. And I’m proud to be in a country where I’m free to express myself. But freedom is a two-way street. If I’m free to express myself, then the scouts have to be free to express themselves too. I know these [scout leaders]. They are good men. They are kind men. They do what they think is best for the kids. No matter how wrong we think they might be, it isn’t right for us to force them to think our way. It’s up to us to persuade and help them see the light, not extort them to… I will continue to persuade them to change their minds, but this is the wrong way to do it. So, I am hereby dropping my case and allowing the scouts their right to not allow gays into their private club.”” Can Big Gay Al please take over the Human Rights Campaign?

“You got to think about O.J.’s situation: $25,000 a month [in alimony], another man driving around in his car, f**king his wife, in a house he’s still paying the mortgage on! Now, I’m not saying he should have killed her. But I understand.” – Chris Rock on O.J.’s plight, posted by Mickey Kaus, who has an excellent column today on Quindlenism (although he disagrees in some measure with yours truly – not exactly a rarety).

GONE FISHING: Latest stats for this site: 180,000 unique visitors last month. Another record. Just you wait till the redesign – courtesy of your donation dollars. Thanks again. Now, I really must get to the beach…

ADDENDUM ON MILITARY GAYS: A left-over thought from recent debates we’ve been having. On gays in the military: if unit-cohesion is so important, why is the gay ban suspended in wartime? It’s the oddest paradox. The policy to keep gays hidden or dishonest in the military is routinely abandoned in wartime. No-one was discharged during Desert Storm. Plenty of gay soldiers who served in the Gulf, however, were thrown out on their return. Charming, huh? Whatever the rationale for this – some argue that it’s more important to keep the military ‘cohesive’ in peace time than in war – it certainly belies the notion that admitting gays openly would put our military capacity at risk. In the only test that matters – war – the military tells us what it really thinks: that gay men can be great soldiers and we need them badly.

I REPRINT, YOU DECIDE: Three emails presenting completely different views on gays in the military. Self-explanatory. But they add some new dimensions to the debate:

“Sorry but I do think unit cohesion would be negatively affected by openly gay men and women in the military. In your military, I would be forced out because I just couldn’t stomach having a Christopher Lowell/Will&Grace type person as a co-pilot on a long mission. It would affect my flying and my professional mission accomplishment abilities. I couldn’t get past the nauseating thoughts I would have knowing the guy lets other guys have anal sex with him, not to mention the annoying voice. I’m just funny that way, and yep it is my problem that would be detrimental to mission accomplishment, so out I would have to go. Yep, I’m just a damn homophobe and I know a whole lot more homophobes like me who wouldn’t be able to get past it either. We would then be the one’s in the closet, if we wanted to keep serving our country, trying all the time not to think about the kinds of things we really do not like, do not approve of, and do not want to put up with. In addition, we don’t want a 27 year old Harvard PhD teaching us at annual, mandatory Diversity Training classes how to be tolerant of such behavior when us homophobes think that it’s wrong and not a “richness in differences.” And, because of deeply entrenched homophobia and right wing Christian Coalition extremist hate, we will never think it is anything other than wrong, even when it’s shoved down our throats, no pun intended.”

“I am a West Point graduate (Class of ’89), former Infantry Captain (with all the requisite Ranger and Airborne training) and I am a heterosexual. There is absolutely no legitimate reason to keep gay soldiers out of the military. We had soldiers that were gay in our Battalion in the 24th ID and they ranged from one of the worst soldiers that I have worked with to one of the best. It did however, make a difference (at least in the Infantry) if that soldier acted effeminate. But that is no different from society at large. Just one man’s thoughts, keep up the good conservative work.”

“In between watching Premier League and Series A soccer and various rugby games, I fell behind in reading the Daily Dish. I think there’s another vantage point from which to consider when debating gays in the military – those who, because of the Pentagon’s policy decided not to enter the armed forces. In an admittedly egotistical vein, I offer myself as an example. In high school, I participated in Junior ROTC and was very successful. The staff could not understand my reluctance to enter ROTC in college or to even apply for admission to one of the service academies. For someone of working class origins, the financial advantages of simply continuing in ROTC in college were significant. Fortunately, at the tender age of 17, I knew I was gay and I also knew that “gay” and “military” did not mix very well. I made it through college and even through law school. One of my professors had been in Army JAG and was then in the Reserves and had numerous contacts. My high school experience was duplicated; during my last year, he urged me several times to go into the JAG corps, and he could not understand my reluctance to do so (especially because he thought I would be very successful). In retrospect, I don’t regret having remained a civilian, and I managed to become more than successful (but not wealthy) in my line of work. But every time I hear about gays in the military, I still wonder …”

Went to see the new Spielberg-Kubrick movie last night. Found it enthralling. It’s rare to see a contemporary movie which is almost all metaphor – deeply affecting, primal metaphor. And is there anything more primal than maternal love and the attempt to replicate it elsewhere in our lives? The movie was clearly Kubrick’s in this respect. In its fathomless skepticism about the purity of human love, its dark exploration of the most banal but deepest cruelty – which is only possible, of course, within the family – and in its ambivalent view of redemption which is at the same time a kind of death, it clearly reflected Kubric’s late gloom. It was only slightly marred by a little too much Spielbergian treacle; but the Kaminski cinematography – those amazing underwater scenes of spiritual struggle – made up for any minor sentimentalism. The kid does even better than he did in the wonderful “Sixth Sense,” which is saying something. He is both uplifting and creepy, which is a perfect adjunct to the story of Pinocchio, on which the movie is clearly based and which remains a leitmotif throughout. I guess I always saw Pinocchio as a gay fable: the story of young boy who is told he is not a real boy, and who rebels in search of normality. How much gayer can you get? The Disney version was imbued with hostility to such difference. In an almost comic piece of Freudianism, the symbol of Pinocchio’s deformity is his growing nose. He joins the circus-theater to escape; he ends up in Boys’ Town, where no females are allowed, and which is almost a gay fantasy island. All of it ends in tears, of course, as Disney’s deep Puritanism won the day. But A.I. is more ambivalent. It is saying that perhaps whether the boy is real or not is not as relevant as whether he struggles to achieve his dreams. That struggle is the ultimate realness. And the content of the boy’s dream is straight from Freud: the return to mother. Even if she is not his ‘real’ mother; and even if he has to lose himself in order to find her.

THEY ALSO SERVED III: Another fascinating email, which largely speaks for itself: “I’m a gay veteran – I served in the US army for seven years, mostly as an infantry NCO. My service straddled the critical year of 1993. Ironically, that was the year I was selected as the Soldier of the Year for the First Armored Division and shortly thereafter I went to work for the division’s commanding general as his driver/bodyguard. While I imagine some people guessed that I was gay, I had no problems and was honorably discharged in 95. From my perspective you are right on except for one thing: Your comment that the unit cohesion is the one non-prejudicial argument. There is prejudice there, as well as a large measure of elitism. The argument assumes that the dumb people at the bottom (the enlisted ranks) are so hopelessly bigoted that they would not be able to get along in the same way as college kids and the upper ranks who often find themselves working among openly gay civilians do. Being similarly elitist, the media seems to have fallen for this, but my experience is that it’s backwards. The more junior personnel tend to be younger, but because they are junior, their voices are never heard. Instead, Congress and the media listened, and continues to listen to senior officers and NCOs and especially to retirees who are out of touch with the bulk of the enlisted force who have grown up with different attitudes not dissimilar from other Americans of their generation. I’m not saying dropping the ban would have no problems. Nor am I saying there is no prejudice in the ranks – the death of PFC Winchell shows there is. I am saying, however, that the openly expressed bias of senior leaders fuels this. This elitist abrogation of the duty to lead and to set a positive example is a major contributor to the climate that exists. And their projection of this bias onto others is the major hurdle to overcome.”

HAPPY FOURTH: I’m sorry to say I’m taking the rest of this week off. I need a vacation. I haven’t had a week off since last October, when we started this crazy project. I won’t promise not to write a thing – I may well get too ticked off for that. But the Dish will be very low-calorie till next week. Our redesign is also imminent – and we’ll use the week off to put on the finishing touches.