Month: August 2005

SAYING GOODBYE

To my beloved niece and nephew. I’ve been recovering all week, but the DP did most of the heavy lifting. Here they are again, just because I’m a proud uncle:

SAVAGE BLOG: Fasten your laptops. Next week, Dan Savage will be guest-blogging in this space. He’s the editor of the Stranger in Seattle, writes a weekly sex advice column that is easily the best on the planet, and has also produced some seriously good books. My favorites: “The Kid,” a memoir of being a gay dad, and “Skipping Towards Gomorrah,” a cheerful account of trying to commit the seven deadly sins across America. His new book, “The Commitment,” is due out in September. Check out his first blogging experience here, live, on Monday.

CHANNELING FALWELL: “One of the things that strikes me more, not less, forcibly as time has passed is the contempt that Muslim extremists feel for us. They despise us for our decadence, and I feel more and more forced to accept the painful truth that they have a point.” – Minette Marin, blaming Britain’s liberalism for Islamo-fascist murder.

ROBERTS AND ROMER: I don’t think there’s much here. Roberts helped out on a fascinating Supreme Court case for his firm. It doesn’t tell us how he’d rule on, say, Lawrence vs Texas. My guess is that as an educated man of his generation, he’s well aware of gay people, doesn’t approve of discrimination, but has a very limited idea of what the constitution can do to protect minorities. I learned more from the reaction of people like James Dobson. For Dobson, any hint of sympathy for homosexuals is anathema. Roberts is a better man than that. And from everything I’ve read, is a superb choice for SCOTUS.

MOMENTUM BUILDS: The latest poll on marriage rights for gays is encouraging news for my side of the debate. For the first time, a national majority (53 percent) support civil unions “permitting gays and lesbians to enter into legal arrangements that would give them many of the same rights as married couples.” Marriage still only gets 36 percent support nationally, but I bet in many blue states, the number is higher (and it’s back to the levels before the election year Republican campaign to demonize it). Interestingly, the highest levels of support come among Independents, not Democrats or Republicans. Given how new this topic is – it’s only been fully in the national discourse for a decade or so – these are striking figures. Support for a constitutional amendment banning all protections for gay couples has sunk from 35 percent to 29 percent in the last year. This last week in Ptown was also family week. Every year, the week has grown. This year it was almost oppressive – kids everywhere, strollers on every sidewalk, bedtime stories at the library, beaches jammed with buckets and shovels. Whatever happens, this social shift is simply reality, part of a bewilderingly rapid change in what can almost no longer be called a single gay culture. I expected some sort of assimilation process. But the speed of it is staggering. The poll also has fascinating data on other social issues. For all their hysteria, the theocons are losing almost every debate.

WORSE THAN THE FATE OF OSCAR THE GROUCH

Ken Tomlinson, the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has taken much heat. There’s an argument to be had about his tenure there. And his efforts to inject politics into the institution might even make the case for privatizing public television. But Tomlinson has two jobs. In addition to CPB, he has run the Broadcasting Board of Governors-the board that oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Sawa, etc. Sadly, he has treated the BBG with the same well-documented tactics that he deployed at CPB. This is not good. The BBG stations should be critical instruments in the war on terror. For many years, they were run in bipartisan fashion. Under Tomlinson that spirit of cooperation has collapsed. I have just
written a piece about this for TNR.

posted by Frank.

WHY NOT, THE RONALD REAGAN MEMORIAL SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT?

First, they came for my airport, and I said nothing. Now, they’re trying to rename my main thoroughfare, 16th Street. The bastards want to make it Ronald Reagan Boulevard. I have much grudging respect for the Gipper. But the District of Columbia was one the few places to thoroughly reject Reagan’s reelection. They won’t let that drop. It’s seems they’ll keep forcing the Great Leader’s name on us until we recant our decision in the 1984 election.

By the way, a big shout out to Tom Davis, for having the sense to stick up for DC on this one.

posted by Frank.

YOU CAN STOP PATTING YOURSELF ON THE BACK

Yes, blogs can create nice communities. (Thanks, by the way, for your hospitality this week.) Yes, blogs can help provide an important check on powerful (and sometimes irresponsible) media. Yes, blogs can help you sell your book on soccer when links to amazon are embedded in superflous sentences. But let’s not get too excited about the blogosphere’s political and social importance just yet. As this study shows, the audience for blogs is comparatively small for now. Therefore, I’m not so ready to say that this medium will revivify American democracy. True, it allows many people to rant, blowing off steam that might otherwise turn into dangerous passions. But, if we’re speaking calmly, it seems the blogs greatest contribution is to slightly expand the elite political discussion. For a long time, the circulation of opinion journals like TNR and NR had stagnated. But the biggest political blogs have expanded the readership of opinion to an audience that goes beyond those magazines. What does this mean? For starters, people want political opinion, but aren’t willing to pay for it. (Andrew’s gnarled fingers bleed in the production of opinion and you won’t pay, ungrateful swine!) Or possibly people have shortened attention spans. They’ll sit for the length of this post (are you still with me?), but they’re too busy and too ADD to sit for a 7,000 word essay in the Atlantic. If blogs lead people further into a world of political ideas, well, color me a booster. If the evidence shows that they come at the expense of other forms of reading, then let’s get hysterical.

By the way, I’m disappointed by the New York Times editorial on blogging. It really says nothing. The Times should be vociferously attacking the blogosphere. Blogging deserves a loyal opposition.

posted by Frank.

OUR RURAL CAPITAL

Washingtonians have a unique term of art to describe migrants from the rural South-or possessors of the migrant mindset-who don’t quite get urban living. They are known as “Bamas.” Remarkably, decades after the last major wave of migration, rural ways of life continue to persist in the heart of the city. George Pelacanos, Washington’s great crime novelist, has occasionally evoked this in his vast oeuvre. Characters will travel through a neighborhood and notice chickens in a front yard. A piece in the WaPost’s local weekly insert describes how large chunks of the city continue to rely on gardens for fresh vegetables. In part, the explanation is troubling. Supermarkets simply don’t exist in certain poorer sections of the city. Although the piece doesn’t get into the cultural history of the city, it also yields a charming conclusion. People grow their own greens, because old ways die hard.

posted by Frank.

MY MESSY DIVORCE

I’m a Washingtonian. This is, all in all, a wonderful thing, except that for many years it denied me the pleasure of a home baseball team. As a child, this meant adopting the nearby Baltimore Orioles. And for a time, this relationship served me well. But then, when puberty and political awareness hit, I began to feel less than comfortable with the team. In part, my alienation was cultural. Baltimore plays “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” during the 7th inning stretch. At that moment, I wasn’t clear on my belief in God, but I was certain about the fact that I’m no country boy. Then, team owner Peter Angelos began to sacrifice the soul of the club. Namely, he bought a goon named Albert Belle to the team. This purchase caused my entire world view to explode. How could I argue the Orioles’ moral superiority when they had Belle? I couldn’t. That year marked the beginning of my long divorce from Baltimore. The pace of our separation has accelerated rapidly with the arrival of the entirely loveable Washington Nationals. To establish our identity as Nats fans, we have had to agressively distance ourselves from our neighboring fans. More to the point, we need to despise them and foment a rivalry with them. Angelos has stirred this pot by conspiring to keep the Nationals off television. (A long story that I won’t get into here.)

In other words, I take some pleasure in watching the Rafael Palmero crisis unfold. I hope that it redounds against the Orioles, and I hope that the Nats sweep the Birds next year in interleague play. Amen.

posted by Frank.

TORTURE FETISH II

Marty Lederman shows how the latest revelations of brutal murder by torture of prisoners by U.S. soldiers was clearly authorized by Bush administration policy. Must read posts here and here. Eventually, the denialists will realize what has been authorized from the highest authorities. More reason to back the McCain and Graham amendments to rid the military of this metastasizing cancer of abuse-as-policy.

– posted by Andrew.