Month: March 2010

I had a great time gabbing with her today for her reality show. She's certainly a lot gayer than I am. But she's also doing something important, rallying support for repeal of the military gay ban. There's a rally in DC tomorrow at noon in Freedom Plaza to end the persecution of gay servicemembers. Be there, straight and gay.

What else? Yeats:

I HAVE met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse –
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

(Photo: Paul McErline/Getty.)

Bernstein analyzes.

A single-serving site of quotes by Bea Arthur from "The Golden Girls."  For instance:

You know, I don't think I ever had a sponge cake so moist.

TWBS.

It's not exactly startling to see that Karl Rove has denied he was aware his own father was gay, even as he guided the GOP into anti-gay wedge politics in the last decade (the Christianists, he coolly calculated, had potentially way more votes for the GOP than gays and their families). But it is important to note that it is untrue that he had no idea his dad was gay or that he was unaware it was the reason for his parents' divorce. From James Moore, the author of The Architect, a biography of Rove:

When I went to Palm Springs in 2005 prior to the publication of The Architect, one of Louis Rove's neighbors literally laughed when I told him Karl claimed he didn't know what happened to his parents' marriage. "He [Karl] was obviously hurt by the divorce. It's just absurd when he says, 'I had no idea what the problems were with my parents and their marriage.' He knew damned good and well what was going on. His father had decided to come out of the closet."

In fact, according to Louis Rove's best friend Joe Koons, Rove not only knew his father's sexual orientation but also was comfortable with it and had accepted his father's honesty.

People are complicated; families are only knowable from within; we should comment on their people's private lives with great reluctance. But Rove's cynical attempts to wage culture war against gay couples, servicemembers and our families surely make this a legitimate issue.

You cannot try to destroy gay couples' marriages while claiming privacy as soon as you face your own divorce or are asked uncomfortable questions about squaring your policy positions and your father's orientation. 

In fact, Rove's experience is as good an argument as any for getting over denial and for embracing marriage equality as any. His own family was torn apart by denial of homosexuality. His experience shows that suppressing, stigmatizing and preventing solid gay relationships is anti-family, not pro-family. He had a great opportunity to show this publicly and, from all accounts, he acted humanely, decently and lovingly around his father, and had a great relationship with him. This could have been a constructive, teaching moment. Similarly with Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter's de facto marriage and grandchildren. And with George W. Bush's personal ease and familiarity and empathy with the actual gay and transgender people he knew and worked with. 

These people should not be demonized. Many of them are humane in private and not bigots in any personal way. That's how they live with themselves.  But the tragedy of their lives and the last painful decade should not be missed.

They knew better. But they pandered to the worst. And their victims were among the people they loved.

Ben Smith updates us on the Israel-US situation.

The Onion scooped the NYT by seven years:

Long Beach, CA, resident Jeanne Bradley was recently given a special commendation by the city of Los Angeles for regularly attending WNBA games. "From midnight cheesecake noshers to moms who don't fool around with pain, feminist achievement covers a broad spectrum," said Bradley in her acceptance speech. "It is great to be a female athlete, senator, or physician. But we must not overlook the homemaker who uses a mop equipped with convenient, throwaway towelettes, the college co-ed who chooses to abstain from sex, and the college co-ed who chooses to have a lot of sex. Only by lauding every single thing a woman does, no matter how ordinary, can you truly go, girls."

A new poll finds that 73% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans say it is “personally acceptable to them if gay and lesbian people were allowed to serve openly in the military.” The Wonk Room adds:

The survey, which sampled 45% self-identified Republicans and just 20% Democrats, suggests that military personnel are more comfortable serving alongside openly gay and lesbian troops than previously thought. The poll also contradicts the findings of a widely circulated Military Times survey, which reported that 58% of respondents are opposed to efforts to repealing DADT

A reader writes:

In terms of creepy game show hosts, nobody can top Richard Dawson of the Family Feud, who made it a point to kiss all of the female contestants, typically on the lips, and fondle them during the fast money round.  He actually wound up marrying a contestant.

National Lampoon's European Vacation parodied Dawson in the opening scene.

Commonweal speaks for many not represented by the hierarchy, and notes that the current pro-life position is based on an untruth:

One needs a good reason to oppose a bill that would cover 30 million uninsured Americans and greatly improve insurance for those who already have it. If the Senate bill did clearly authorize the federal government to pay for elective abortions, prolife Americans might have such a reason. To conclude the bill does this, however, requires one to believe that every ambiguity—every possible complication the bill doesn’t explicitly address—is a ploy by prochoice politicians to sneak abortion funding into the system. President Barack Obama and his party’s leadership have promised the bill won’t be used in this way.

Their critics instruct us to presume that they’re lying.

These critics point out that the bill departs from the Hyde Amendment’s ban on federal support for any health plan that covers elective abortion. They insist this is the only conceivable way for the government to subsidize insurance without paying for abortion. This is false, as the Senate bill itself clearly demonstrates. Under the bill, anyone who buys a plan that covers elective abortion would have to pay a separate, unsubsidized premium for that coverage. Such premiums would be segregated from premiums for all other services in a special account, which would have to cover the full cost of elective abortions and couldn’t receive a penny from the government. In other words, the bill would preserve the Hyde Amendment’s principle without applying its method.