Month: December 2006

Melbourne, Australia, 10.15 am.

Tracing the path of the poisoned Russian.

For Aaron. On World AIDS Day.

A reader writes:

How is Mark Levin’s post on Chester Finn’s article a "sign of health"?  He simply links to Finn’s article and labels it "a prescription for disaster." In other words, it simply amounts to trying to cast out another conservative because he has dared to challenge the far-right fringe that now dominates debate in conservative circles.

Finn’s article was a sign of health and sanity, providing reassurance that "intelligent conservative" is not an oxymoron. Levin’s post is a sober reminder that dysfunctionality and radical (non-conservative) ideology are still core components of today’s so-called conservatism.

A sane, smart argument against raising it – from Greg Mankiw.

Some readers have asked if I favor its abolition. I sure do. That’s probably why I’m a blogger and not a politician.

Jefferson City, Missouri, 10.30 this morning.

A reader writes:

I just wanted to drop a note to thank you for linking to the video for Smalltown Boy. It was, and still is one of my favorite songs, and to this day, I have it, as well as a Jimmy Sommerville version of "I Never Can Say Good-Bye" on a CD in my car, (along with other songs by Bronski Beat, The Communards, UB40 et all).

Being from a small town and being gay in the ’80’s was never easy. I was a teenager in a small town in the 70’s, and it was even harder. I endured black eyes, broken bones, ostracism, and generally being the town "fairy".

Needless to say,  on the day I turned 18, I was gone. By the time this video came out, I had already met the love of my life (this past Sept was our 26th anniversary), but even now, some of the scars surface. I had forgotten how gut wrenching some parts of that vid is.

Can I just say this to my straight readers: when you think of gay people, and the "gay agenda," please think of this guy as well, will you? He went through all that, found a husband and committed to him for 26 years – and the Republicans now tell him that his committed relationship is a a threat to the family and to civilization. In my view, someone who endured that and committed to a relationship for almost three decades should at least be given the same civil rights as Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock. Anything else adds insult to injury.

David Kuo writes an open letter to two leaders of the Christianist right.

A reader writes:

I’m no shrink but it seems to me that W will stick to his guns in Iraq for one simple reason: When things finally change upon his retirement (and, as you know better than I, it’s going to get rough for a while when it does) he can say "if they’d just continued my policy everything would have been OK. They changed it, and now you’ve got a disaster. I told you so."

I’ll rant, and state the obvious. He’s a cosseted son-of-the-establishment who failed all the way up to presidency. Just as in everything that’s come before in his life his Dad and his Dads’ buds are going to bail him out. Problem this time is that he’s president. He has the wherewithal – and an enabler in substitute father-figure Cheney – to put them off. It’s only two years. It’ll be a disaster of Iraq, and for us, but he’ll go into his dotage thinking he’s a success.

And that’s all he cares about. He already said it’s going to be someone else’s problem.

If this is an accurate assessment of the president’s motives, he really is a danger to the republic and a disgrace to his office. But I suspect that he has already also rationalized it in his head as the statesmanlike option. He’s blind even to his own pride.

(Photo from yesterday in Kirkuk by Marwan Ibrahim for AFP/Getty.)