Category: The Dish

A reader writes:

"You have just shown another way in which you’re not a real conservative. You know nothing about guns or shooting! What Cheney shot Whittington with was birdshot, not buckshot. One does not use buckshot for hunting quail. I’d guess Cheney was using nothing bigger than No. 6 birdshot. Also, had Whittington been hit in the head with buckshot rather than birdshot, he’d likely have been killed."

I’m grateful for the correction. I’m guilty as charged. I know next to nothing about the subject. For the record, I have no problem with people who spend their spare time wandering woods in order to kill small animals. To each their own. Liberty means liberty. But, speaking personally, I’d rather leave small animals alone than spend time killing them for fun. Yeah, crazy, I know.

P.S. Just after writing this post, one of my beagles jumped up on my laptop and the re-edit page popped up. I kid you not. The Sullivan household clearly has some dissent on the whole hunting issue.

"A later realization – I suppose I have sensed it most of my life, but I have understood it philosophically only during the preparation of this talk – has been the beauty of the idea of the pursuit of happiness. Familiar words, easy to take for granted; easy to misconstrue. This idea of the pursuit of happiness is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on its periphery. I find it marvelous to contemplate to what an extent, after two centuries, and after the terrible history of the earlier part of this century, the idea has come to a kind of fruition. It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don’t imagine my father’s parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist; and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away." – V.S. Naipaul, 1990 (Wriston lecture).

Leave it to the Fark discussion boards …

"On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes. My Crescent City
Is where your speech alone is understood,

And greeted as the natural noise of good,
Scattering long-haired grief and scored pity."

– Philip Larkin, "For Sidney Bechet."

Happy Valentine’s Day.

"… and I’m with Kaus," a reader writes. He continues:

"I don’t deny Kaus’ pathetic weird strains of no-I’m-really-really-straight homophobia ("Look, I like completely straight movies like ‘Wuthering Heights.’"), or his absurdist reaches to disprove ‘Brokeback’s popularity ("Look, there’s a tiny small town in New Mexico that doesn’t like Brokeback Mountain. I am vindicated."). Still, I think when it comes to judging the widespread nature of homophobia, he’s probably more on the mark than you.

I am 25 years old, a very straight acting gay man, and as such I’ve been privy to a lot of nasty comments about homosexuality that some of my more effeminate brothers may not be. It’s amazing how many incredibly straight people will fixate on how disgusting sucking cock or fucking a man up the ass is. Of course, it’s always satisfying when they joke with me, accusing me of maybe not being completely straight. When I say they’re dead on, and they’re left feeling woefully embarassed.

How often have I experienced this? I don’t know. Maybe every time I’ve ever met a straight person for the first time in the past 10 years. Homophobia is part of our language. It’s part of our humor. There are plenty of mature responses that I’ve heard to Brokeback Mountain, coupled with the old late night jokes, from SNL to David Letterman. "I wish I could quit you," has become one hell of a punchline in a way "We’ll always have Paris" simply could not.

This odd melding of casual homophobia with an excused tolerance probably best represents the turning point we are currently experiencing. If anything, I think most people in America are watching this movie with both their better and worse angels (represented, maybe, by you and Kaus) on their shoulders."

This is quite an interview. Money quote:

"I’m a Republican only as far as I want a smaller government, I want less government intrusion, I want them to stop pissing on my money and your money, the tax dollars that we give 50 per cent of or 40 per cent of every year, and I want them to be fiscally responsible, and I want these goddamn lobbyists out of Washington. Do that and I’ll say I’m a Republican."

He’s also for government helping the truly needy, as am I. I’d prefer that to funneling billions to lobbyists, corporations and wealthy seniors.

The State of the Union affected Bush’s ratings not a jot. But we knew that already, didn’t we? He’s been treading brackish water since December.

Is it me or is this news just plain dumbfounding? The U.S. and Israel’s first response to a democratically elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories is to derail it? And not just subtly, but openly? And then we find out that "the United States and the European Union in particular want any failure of Hamas in leadership to be judged as Hamas’s failure, not one caused by Israel and the West." Maybe the reporters garbled something. But a policy of democratization in the Middle East does not exactly gain credibility when its architects try and destroy whichever government emerges from democracy. The rationale seems to be that Hamas did much better in the allocation of seats than in the wider vote. But that applies to dozens of democratically elected governments the world over. I can certainly see why the U.S. and the E.U. might want to put conditions on aid to the Palestinians. But if you want to have the worst of all worlds, insist on democracy and then insist on undermining it.

A soldier in Iraq writes:

"So – yeah – the war – I wish I could put down what I feel about it.  I mean, I feel a lot of rage over how we have fucked this thing up as if we had a play book on just how to do it wrong, step by step. Too few men on the ground (in the military sense) going in and too few to hold the land once we claimed it. I feel simultaneous pride and pity in the guys over here who came to fight terrorism – thinking that there was some link between Hussein and Bin Laden. However, we are here now. The notion of putting down a foot-hold of democracy somewhere over here is definitely the right thing to do. There is no denying how the Iraqis have welcomed at least the elections we have brought to them. But I still can’t get over how if we’d followed the advice of the senior generals and the war plans developed by years of experienced strategists – this counter-insurgency battle would not be looming over our heads as perilously as it is. But I am here now to support my fellow warriors. It’s that simple."

All I can add to that is: I’m grateful, deeply grateful, for his service, and that of so many, forced to carry the burden of a war their superiors bungled beyond belief. May they be protected; and may their mission succeed.

With endorsements, huge salaries, steroid-cheating, perjury, wife-beating, and other malefactions affecting the sports world, what a pleasant experience to watch Joey Cheek’s superb performance in speed-skating last night, and now the donation of his prize money to help the displaced kids of Darfur. Some good news, for a change. (Okay, okay, he’s hot. But now he’s even hotter.)