A reader writes:
I just bought "The Conservative Soul". Thanks for writing a useful definition of a faith that incorporates reason and experience. Just finished the abortion passage. I can see why the National Review would rather bury than answer you.
"I think Barack Obama is the most interesting persona to appear on the political radar screen in decades. He’s a walking, talking hope machine, and he may reshape American politics," – Republican operative, Mark McKinnon.
Two Episcopal congregations in Virginia are considering whether to be governed by a Nigerian archbishop who believes that gays should be incarcerated for the crime of adult consensual sex and that their free speech should be controlled. Just an update on the beliefs of some Virginian Christians.
Jose Padilla is a U.S. citizen. He was detained without formal charges for almost four years and turned into a mental patient. The original charges against him appear nowhere in his current criminal prosecution. They were fabrications or delusions or fantasies. Money quote:
The strong public accusations made during his military detention ‚Äî about the dirty bomb, Al Qaeda connections and supposed plans to set off natural gas explosions in apartment buildings ‚Äî appear nowhere in the indictment against him. The indictment does not allege any specific violent plot against America. Mr. Padilla is portrayed in the indictment as the recruit of a ‘North American terror support cell’ that sent money, goods and recruits abroad to assist ‘global jihad’ in general, with a special interest in Bosnia and Chechnya. Mr. Padilla, the indictment asserts, traveled overseas ‘to participate in violent jihad’ and filled out an application for a mujahedin training camp in Afghanistan.
Michael Caruso, a public defender for Mr. Padilla, pleaded ‘absolutely not guilty’ for him to charges of conspiracy and of providing material support to terrorists.
Neither you nor I know what Padilla was up to, and it will now be up to a court to decide. But the effect of the brutal incarceration of Padilla may now make it impossible to convict him on any grounds. Like al-Qahtani, the torture and abuse to which he has been subject seem to have broken his mind:
"During questioning, he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body," Mr. Patel said. "The contortions are particularly poignant since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel."
Padilla, by all accounts, was a completely non-violent and docile prisoner every day of his incarceration. And yet they put him in body-manacles for four years, complete isolation and darkness, and even fitted him with night-goggles for a dental operation. They dehumanized him into a piece of furniture. The level of pure sadism and paranoia in his treatment is worthy of a military dictatorship, not a democracy. Remember also the description of another detainee, al-Qahtani, after detention by the Bush administration:
At the end of months of sleep deprivation and other forms of torture, Qahtani, according to an FBI letter, "was evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma (talking to non existent people, reporting hearing voices, crouching in a cell covered with a sheet for hours on end)."
Now remember the definition of torture: "severe mental or physical pain or suffering." Four years of blindness and isolation? Post-traumatic stress disorder? Involuntary twitching and body contortion? You think that doesn’t amount to prolonged and severe mental suffering?
This, remember, is an American citizen, who was charged with grievous crimes even the government has now dropped for lack of any evidence. Locked away for four years in solitary confinement, and not even allowed to walk down a hallway without night-goggles, in order to keep him disoriented. Padilla may not be successfully prosecuted because his treatment means evidence from his own testimony is too tainted by torture to be admitted in court. (Qahtani has also retracted everything he was tortured to say.) This is the America Bush has created: lawless, brutal, inhumane, and incompetent. We have no evidence that any of this has made you safer. But it has struck at the very heart of the liberty this country was founded to protect and defend.
National Review is touting Rick Santorum as U.N. ambassador. You cannot make this stuff up.
How did we forget Lionel Ritchie? I apologize in advance for the fact that this tune may get wedged in your consciousness all day. One word: Hello. Another word: Aaaaarrggghhhh!
My Sunday Times column is up. Money quote:
The hope is that his declarations of no change of course are as credible as his insistence only a month ago that Rumsfeld would remain defense secretary until January 2009. Maybe it’s a last-ditch poker face in an intractable situation.
Or maybe — gulp — he really does believe that Iraq is still fixable, that Maliki will soon emerge as a unifying national leader, that American troops will manage to calm a civil war, that trained Iraqi troops will fight for a united democratic government rather than for sect or tribe or vengeance.
I hope it’s the former, with sanity soon to re-emerge. But I fear it may be the latter: and that his brinkmanship is something he has tragically mistaken for strength.
(Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.)
A reader writes:
I have been a long time reader of your blog. I felt compelled after seeing the Bronski Beat video and reading the response you posted to email you my story.
I am a 32 year old woman, wife and mother of 2 beautiful children and who has not seen or been in contact with my father for 28 years. Growing up I always wondered why my father left. My mother would always say he was just a dead beat dad and to never try to make contact with him. I never understood her animosity towards him or why she was so adamant about me never to locate him or reach out to him. When you’re that young you just listen to what your mom says and do what she tells you to do without question.
When I was about 18 it finally "came out" that my father was a gay man. This of course was told to me by my mother who said she found gay porn in our home and blamed it on my brother. It was when my mother confronted my father with her findings he admitted they where his magazines. Nothing else was said. A divorce soon followed.
Since this was revealed to me I have strongly believed that anyone, no matter what, should have the same rights as everyone else in this world. It seems a simple thing to me. I know that if this was the right of everyone 32 years ago I would not be here but I was the product of what my father was trying to hide from. I think that is painful for both him and myself and may be why he has never tried to make contact with me. And I with him.
Watching that video made me think of what he must have gone through and even though I don’t agree that he should have cut off all ties with me, I can, in a small way, understand.
I know there are more people in this world just like me and in the same situation. Maybe we should all come out and tell this stupid administration that gay marriage is not a "threat to the family and to civilization". What is a threat is making someone feel so ashamed of who they are live a lie. Force them to feel they have to marry a women or a man, have a child, than abandon that child leaving the child to wonder why?
Thank you for listening to my story. I hope it made sense.
It does. It’s a culture that makes this happen that makes no sense. But it’s changing.
"I was all set to do a really kick-ass column this week on cuckolding‚Äîwherein a straight man watches, or is told about, another man having sex with his wife or girlfriend‚Äîwhen one of my coworkers walked in with a pan of pumpkin pot cake. She told us that the cake was a complete failure as a drug; she had eaten two pieces the night before and didn’t get high at all. It was, however, pretty tasty cake, so she brought it in to work to share with everybody.
Well, it seems that my coworker’s tolerance for THC is lots higher than mine. I had one little sliver of cake‚Äîmaybe two‚Äîand now I’m so fucking baked I can hardly see my laptop. I shouldn’t be writing a column in this condition‚Äîgoodness, what if someone were to actually take my advice?‚Äîbut deadlines are deadlines and no editor will accept performance de-hancing drugs as an excuse for missing one. So I set aside the contentious cuckolding issue until next week and scrounged up a few questions that, even stoned, I can’t screw up. Or can I?" – Dan Savage, in this week’s "Savage Love."
A reader writes:
The blogging drunk email gave me a great idea. All the bloggers, right and left, should get together in one place, with their laptops, and blog on ecstasy.
It would do wonders for the tone of the debate.
But what if John Derbyshire gazed at me with dilated pupils and told me he loved me?
The Dish 