The Dish

Courtesy of Nate Silver:

[T]he pro-gay marriage group No on 1 Protect Maine Equality has raised more than $2.30 million in itemized contributions from outside the state of Maine; this is more than the $1.82 million that Stand for Marriage Maine has raised from out-of-state.

However, most of No on 1's advantage is based on its substantial edge in fundraising from within the state of Maine. No on 1 has raised $1.89 million from 3,766 unique contributors within the state, whereas Stand for Marriage Maine has raised just $677,000 from 422 contributors, putting it at nearly a 3:1 disadvantage. All told, No on 1 has raised 43 percent of its funds from within Maine, as compared with 26 percent for the Yes on 1 campaign.

Aaron Renn says that "progressive cities" like Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver having less African Americans than the national average "raises troubling questions." James Joyner pounces:

“Diversity” is something that’s been advanced as a goal in recent years and which has in turn sparked a counter-diversity push by whites, like [Pat] Buchanan, who see it as a threat.  It’s a very odd thing in that there’s never been a more diverse culture anywhere.  Not only are we a giant melting pot drawn from all the world’s cultures — even while our common core is Western European — but we’re incredibly heterogeneous.  Life varies from city-to-city, state-to-state, and region-to-region.  And “diversity” means more than “percentage of poor blacks.”

So, it’s more than slightly odd for someone to argue for more diversity by arguing we ought all be more alike.

Fallows notes an Australian assessment of the McChrystal report. Paul McGeogh sees the report as proof that McChrystal’s proposed strategy is doomed. Money quote:

“In assessing the insurgency, McChrystal declares it, or them, to be sophisticated, organised, adaptive, determined and nuanced across all lines of operations … with, he goes on, the capacity to exhaust the coalition and to prevent Kabul from governing the country. Much of his report leads to a conclusion that it is the very opposite that applies to Karzai and the Coalition’s operations…  Right now, I’m frightened for Afghanistan – I read McChrystal and I look back over 20 or more assignments in the country since just before 9/11 and my fear is that he has missed the boat.

“The Taliban is stronger, more violent and more in control than at any time since it was dislodged from Kabul in 2001. Foreign forces, mostly American, are dying at a greater rate and hundreds of billions of dollars are being squandered for no apparent return. Public and political support for the war has peaked and now is declining in the U.S. and in other coalition countries. As Hamid Karzai continues to demonstrate with his election fraud and his response to its exposure – the Kabul Government is rotten from the top….

“McChrystal, I fear, has arrived too late – for Afghanistan and for Washington… The general wants a blank cheque for a jalopy on which he offers no warranty.”

What Bush and Cheney threw away Obama cannot recapture. Knowing what cannot be done is the first rule of conservative statesmanship. Here’s hoping Obama is more conservative than Bush and Cheney.

Andrew in his column took stock of a week-long examination of cultural diversity in America. He also delved into the violence that just erupted in Jerusalem and Baghdad.

This Dish profiled another great, emerging civil rights hero. We saw some unsettling images from the drug war, the environmental front, and Anne Frank's window. Karen Armstrong defended the reality of God and Andrew defended the reality of God in sports. And we glanced at the origins of mankind from both major perspectives.

In other weekend randomness, The Daily Show reflected on Iran, Katja Grace showed how generous people aren't that generous, Jonah Lehrer went wine tasting, Thomas Bingham wanted to abolish the House of Lords, Lexington called out some dumbass criminals, and Frank Rich talked about the dual scourges of AIDS and ALW. 

The Dish covered sperm here and here, and two cool sites here and here.  And e.e. cummings would have totally dug YouTube.

Just in case you haven't seen this video yet, see it.

— C.B.

David Link examines the latest Willie-Horton style ad launched by the anti-marriage equality forces in Maine. He exposes the use of the ominous and vague pronoun "they" to instill fear; and shows how the argument about schools is essentially an argument for keeping gays in the closet – invisible and unmentionable as in days of yore:

What those parents really want is to prohibit any discussion of gay couples, period; and that has nothing to do with marriage or school curriculum and everything to do with gays abandoning the closet and being honest about themselves in the world at large.

The existing curriculum reflects the earlier world they are comfortable with, which is not neutral to sexual orientation.  Children are regularly taught that princes can marry princesses, which is no more than a simple reaffirmation of heterosexual love and affection. Homosexuals are simply left out – they do not exist.

If that is all children learn, then they are, in fact, learning a kind of bias in their most formative years. 

This has never been intentional, since the vast majority of all children are heterosexual, and are learning about themselves.  But they are also learning about the broader world, and what it includes.  If they are prevented from learning that a prince (so inclined) can marry another prince (who is also so inclined) then they are learning that princes cannot marry other princes.

More to the point, those children who are, or may be gay, are learning something far more perverse about themselves – they are learning that the world does not include them.  Again, this is not intentional, but as any adult homosexual can testify, it is as real as anything can be.

Invisibility always works against homosexuals who are, after all, seeking their place in the public world.  When the debate is about children, that invisibility gets submerged in a non-sexual environment that, nevertheless, has very strong elements of future, developing sexuality running through it. Whether it’s in the curriculum or not, children see heterosexuality everywhere.  That is as it should be, since heterosexuals are everywhere. It would be preposterous to pretent that could ever change.

But it is wrong to prohibit – or think that anyone could prohibit – children from knowing that some people, and potentially some of them, will not be heterosexual.  In public schools, or in any other forum, such discussions must be age appropriate.  What teachers discuss in a second grade class is very different from classroom debates in high school.

Robert J. Samuelson argues against a second stimulus:

The rap on Stimulus 1.0 is that it hasn't yet—as promised—reduced unemployment. Boosters retort that unemployment would have been worse without it, and more than half hasn't even been spent. Detractors argue that the benefits of "stimulus" packages are overrated. Underlying this dispute is an academic argument about the "multiplier": whether increased stimulus spending and tax cuts translate into large increases for the overall economy, or whether the effects are offset. Consumers might save most tax cuts, or bigger deficits might raise interest rates and crowd out private borrowing.

In truth, there is no "right" answer; the multiplier will vary depending on economic circumstances. In this case, the Obama administration is more plausible than its critics. In early 2009 consumer and business spending was collapsing. The stimulus helped stabilize the economy; it's saved jobs that otherwise would have been lost. Interest rates didn't rise. But just because the earlier stimulus was justified doesn't mean that another would be, because circumstances are changing.

The insanity continues.

One of Ireland’s most loved athletes, Donal Óg Cusack, in one of its iconic sports – hurling – comes out as gay. His coming out story is uncannily like mine – and many others’ (see the video above). It’s a very big deal in Ireland. Eamonn Sweeney writes about the impact on young people in Ireland and why his country needs change:

We don’t deserve any plaudits because he came out. It doesn’t show that we’ve ‘matured as a nation’. It shows that he’s a mature individual. It is a credit to him, not to us. Were we to put in place legislation that meant Donal óg Cusack might one day be able to legally marry, then we could start clapping ourselves on the back.

Tom Humphries writes:

Dónal Óg Cusack has yet again done the GAA and Irish society a huge favour. His refusal to accept that things within Cork hurling would always have to be as they were in the past has changed the GAA landscape there forever. His insistence that GAA players should stand together to improve their lot has angered many, but has brought the GAA into the 21st century in terms of player welfare issues.

And now as the first prominent sportsperson on this island to come out and speak frankly about his sexuality, the first to insist on his right to be judged as a sportsperson first and last, he has challenged that boorish machismo that still underpins a lot of Irish society and a lot of GAA life. And he has challenged those of us who by our silence are accomplices in that culture. From now on we have to judge ourselves, not Dónal Óg Cusack.

Cusack was recently the target of homophobic insults from a megaphone in the stands. Here’s why he broke the taboo – out of a sense of duty, and a responsibility for others, who need this leadership:

My Sunday column tries to channel and summarize a week's "Whose Country?" discussion on the Dish. Money quote:

In human history there is no purity, only change. There is no stability, only flux. The past always inhabits the present, even as the present tries to distort or co-opt the past in its own myths and dreams. That many white Americans do not even acknowledge or realise how black they are — and that many African-Americans do not grasp how utterly different they have become from those Africans they were forced to leave behind centuries ago — does not alter this reality. In some ways, it deepens it. It is so deep it has

become unconscious.

These varied roots, these mongrel evolutions, this hybrid inheritance make us who we are. And it is this mixture that is authentically American, just as the wave after wave of immigration, ancient and modern, has made Britain Britain.

It is a pied kind of beauty, this diversity. And those who wish to simplify it, to reduce it to some biological or racial element that renders us something other than we actually are, are not in any way conservatives. They are fantasists and bigots, deaf to the music true nations make, and the many variations that still make their melodies soar.

That clip of the World War II veteran speaking out for the civil rights of his gay son is not new. In fact, it dates from last April. But the Dish's re-posting on October 21 gave it a second life. From the Dish (1.27 pm) to HuffPo (8.26 pm) to  Boing Boing (10.57 pm) and then back to Maine's own evening news, the Youtube has now passed the half million viewer mark. When we say the Dish relaunched this video, we mean, of course, you.

Yes, re-posting it was a start, but your emailing of it, sending it to Boing Boing, and the viral nature of such personal amateur-but-better-than-any-pro videos did the rest. Sometimes the web is grueling work; but most of the time it's an inspiring thing if you believe in democracy and the power of personal testimony and the wisdom of the crowd – in the long run – in seeing reality as it is.

If you missed it the first time around, it's after the jump. You will have a lump in your throat by the end. Know hope.