|
|
Or, What I Learned in Texas
 So much can be learned just by looking at this image... Just so there isn’t any confusion – I had a great visit to Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas. It was wonderful to see my family and comforting to see familiar sites. For example, the rust-colored dirt and earthy smell of Oklahoma always makes me feel at home (pics of the OKC National Memorial here).
My mom lives in Montgomery County, Texas. For those of you unfamiliar with southeast Texas geography, it is the county north of Houston, where I spent 24 years of my life. Being a rural county, the population is not, on average, particularly educated, sophisticated or skilled at fact checking and critical thinking. In other words, it is a right wing county.
I’ll just come out and say it. I was not comfortable when I was there. I felt like a cat surrounded by rabid dogs. Except, I didn’t look like a cat. I was fine as long as I pretended to be a dog, like I did for the ten or so years I lived there after admitting to myself I was gay.
For one thing, there are churches everywhere, and unlike the churches I see here in San Francisco, these have signs with supernatural mumbo-jumbo about turning your life and worries over to God or Jesus, which just sounds to me like abandoning your self-responsibility and getting drunk. Prayer can help! Jesus can save you! God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! (yes, there was really a church sign that said that). It made me uncomfortable. I expressed that to my mom and she didn’t understand it. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said.
“Of course it doesn’t bother you,” I replied. “You haven’t been targeted by them.”
Anyway, at a traffic light on FM1488, I saw the following bumper sticker on a monster truck (I also saw it on a t-shirt a guy wore): “I’ll keep my money, guns and freedom. You keep the change.”
Ready? Let’s do a quick tear-down.
“I’ll keep my money”
This of course implies that Obama is someone who is going to raise taxes. The fact is, he hasn’t [1], though next year he is likely to allow the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, who received the largest tax cuts from Bush, to expire [2] while actually decreasing taxes for those making less than $200,000 a year. I’m going to bet that Mr. Redneck Monster Truck Driver makes less than $200,000 per year.
The above is consistent with his campaign promise to drop taxes for everyone but the highest income earners, which he planned to return to pre-Bush levels [3].
Verdict: You will keep your money, change or no change. What point are you trying to make again?
“I’ll keep my guns”
The gun worshipers, including the NRA and the Gun Owners of America, warned voters that Obama would take their guns away. This was despite campaign promises that he wouldn’t. Not only has he stuck to that promise, but he has relaxed gun control laws. Even semi-automatic weapons, which Clinton banned and the Republicans allowed again in 2004, are not in danger of being banned again by Obama. [4]
Verdict: You will keep your guns, change or no change. What point are you trying to make again?
“I’ll keep my freedom”
HUH? Exactly what freedom was he afraid of losing?
“Freedom” is a word that the right wing throws around a lot as if they have a monopoly on offering it. The ironic thing is that right wing ideologies generally limit personal freedoms, especially those of social and ethnic minorities. So maybe he wants to be free to be a bigot? I have no idea what this was about, and I’ll bet he doesn’t either [5].
Verdict: You will keep you freedom, change or no change. What point are you trying to make again?
The things that this mentally-challenged individual was concerned about losing were never in danger. At no time did Obama make any comment threatening them. But right-wing groups and commentators said Obama did, and that was what mattered. Because this is post-fact America, where facts are irrelevant. Evidence be damned, Obama is an autocratic, gun-hating socialist because the right wing wants him to be.
And that is what I learned in Texas.
[1] http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2009/09/2010-tax-brackets-and-standard.html
[2] http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2010/04/2010-and-2011-tax-brackets-new.html
[3] http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/
[4] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-02-14/news/ct-oped-0214-chapman-20100212_1_gun-control-common-sense-gun-safety-laws-gun-rights
[5] Politicians and talking heads constantly use terms that sound good but have no real substance in the context in which they are used. Some of my favorites: “freedom” “bureaucrat” “special interest group”
Or, AT&T service SUCKS in San Francisco
 I’ve had the iPhone 3GS since it was released a year ago. I held off that long because until then, the iPhone OS didn’t support cut and paste or have a landscape keyboard. When Apple finally added these features (that my Palm Treo had years before), I decided to make the jump. I still don’t care for soft keyboards, but I deal.
Anyway, the first thing I noticed about the iPhone is that I was frequently unable to get a signal in the Financial District, the Castro, Muni Metro platforms, or upper 17th Street. In fact, it was worse than my Treo. This went on for months, and many, many other people had similar complaints. Calls would drop or not complete. 3G data service was spotty if available at all. Even the EDGE network was spotty. But this is all old news.
Now, many people are reporting improvements in San Francisco. Yet they must not spend much time in the Financial District, which unfortunately for me as an AT&T customer, is where I spend many of my waking hours. Recently I downloaded the free SpeedTest app from speedtest.net to check the data rates I was getting. It illustrated quantitatively just how bad my service is when I’m at or near my office.
The data speed numbers at and near my office (1st and Mission, 1st and Market, 2nd and Mission, 2nd and Folsom) are the low ones. At best, connection speed is a fraction of what I get near the gym, Chuck’s or in my neighborhood. At worst, it is useless. Note that these numbers are not in the core of my building (I can’t get a signal in *any* of the Financial District buildings I’ve been in if I’m too far from a window). All of the results are on a sidewalk or at my desk, which is right at the corner window of my floor.
It’s still bad on upper 17th and certain parts of the Castro / Eureka Valley, but I’m only in those neighborhoods occasionally. The deal killer is the poor service around my office. I can’t imagine any business in the Financial District supporting iPhones. AT&T just doesn’t work there.
I have one year left on my contract. AT&T has that long to get it together.
| Date |
Time |
Location |
Network |
Download* |
Upload* |
Ping** |
| 6/30/2010 |
7:08pm |
9th and Brannan |
3G |
2097 |
210 |
359 |
| 6/30/2010 |
12:51pm |
1st and Mission |
3G |
478 |
40 |
515 |
| 6/30/2010 |
11:27am |
2nd and Folsom |
3G |
384 |
59 |
14289 |
| 6/30/2010 |
11:19am |
1st and Mission |
3G |
5 |
0 |
3429 |
| 6/30/2010 |
11:06am |
1st and Mission |
3G |
13 |
56 |
977 |
| 6/30/2010 |
10:27am |
1st and Market |
3G |
235 |
0 |
361 |
| 6/29/2010 |
5:36pm |
18th and Sanchez |
3G |
1615 |
245 |
361 |
| 6/29/2010 |
2:30pm |
2nd and Mission |
3G |
121 |
0 |
382 |
| 6/29/2010 |
8:55am |
1st and Market |
3G |
210 |
60 |
551 |
| 6/28/2010 |
8:44pm |
Forest Knolls |
3G |
2258 |
276 |
339 |
| 6/28/2010 |
8:43pm |
Home |
Wifi |
8282 |
3629 |
81 |
| 6/28/2010 |
7:08pm |
Home |
Wifi |
11686 |
3607 |
84 |
| 6/28/2010 |
6:21pm |
18th and Sanchez |
3G |
1684 |
277 |
2542 |
| 6/28/2010 |
5:35pm |
1st and Market |
3G |
578 |
72 |
4018 |
| 6/28/2010 |
3:17pm |
1st and Mission |
3G |
744 |
47 |
530 |
| 6/28/2010 |
12:12pm |
1st and Mission |
3G |
32 |
6 |
3043 |
| 6/28/2010 |
11:58am |
1st and Mission |
3G |
486 |
43 |
1977 |
| 6/28/2010 |
10:08am |
1st and Mission |
3G |
455 |
79 |
526 |
| 6/27/2010 |
10:48pm |
Home |
Wifi |
5702 |
3578 |
93 |
* Transfer speeds are in kb per second.
** Response speed is in milliseconds.
When I was a kid, my grandparents had a pair of round black chairs, shaped rather like barrels, in the front room of their house in SoCal. My grandfather always sat in the one facing the front door. I remember sitting in his lap when I was very, very young and playing with the skin on his elbow. It had lost its elasticity and would retain its shape for a few seconds after I’d mold it (btw, he is still kickin’ at 96).
 The inherited chair in our apartment. Anyway. As I grew up, the distinctive chairs were always there and because they were at my grandparents, I had very strong positive associations with them. When I was in high school, I told my grandmother that I would like to have one of them someday. In the eighties, she redecorated the front room and one of the chairs disappeared. They had the remaining one reupholstered in a peach colored vinyl and it remained my favorite chair as a young adult.
In 2003, my grandmother passed away and my grandfather went to live with my aunt and uncle, who had a house only a few blocks away. The furniture was distributed to the family or sold, and the chair came to me. When Fuad and I moved in together, we used the chair for a few months until we got furniture. Because there was no room for it in our apartment, it went into storage.
In late 2008, we bought our house on Mt. Sutro and we had room for the chair again, which brings us to this year.
For years we had talked about reupholstering it, so when Fuad was looking for a project, he decided to do it himself. A friend of ours had a lot of experience reupholstering furniture and offered to help. The chair disappeared. Then a week or so later, Fuad asked me if my family had the chair’s mate. I checked and they didn’t. He was disappointed, because he had looked into having a duplicate of the frame made and it was too difficult. The chair would remain one of a kind.
Weeks passed. He spent many dozens of hours working on the chair. He removed thousands of staples until his hands were raw. The three layers of upholstery (beneath the peach was the black I remembered and below THAT was the original off-white from the forties) were peeled away. With his friend’s help he beefed up the ancient wooden frame and replaced the supports. He then selected the new fabrics and went to work on the actual reupholstering.
Months passed. Then yesterday, I walked in our front door and to my complete surprise was not one, but TWO identical chairs. I’m still blown away.
 The frame after removing the layers of upholstery. |
 The rebuilt and reupholstered chair and its built-from-scratch mate. |
 The chairs from the side. |
Is my husband amazing or what???
Or, What I Learned in Georgia
I spent the last two weeks of May in Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas. I went to Atlanta to visit my cousin and her husband, Oklahoma to see my dad and Texas to visit my mom. Before I left San Francisco, someone referred to it as my Red State Tour. Well, it was just that.
Georgia was beautiful. It was my first time in the state (other than the airport) and it reminded me of a slightly hillier version of east Texas. Very green, very forested and very humid. Atlanta reminded me of a mix of the Texas cities I knew well: some Houston and Austin with a dash of Dallas. The city is diverse and cosmopolitan with just the right amount of granola crunchiness. There I discovered the joy of fried pickles, fried jalapeños and the childhood home of Martin Luther King, Jr. (photos.)
God is not a Socialist
It was also near Atlanta that I learned that “God is not a socialist,” something I saw written on a billboard along I-75 in Henry County. Underneath that fascinating bit of information were the words: STOP OBAMA. Ah, yes, I was in the countryside of a Red State.
There are so many things wrong with this billboard that one could write a book examining and refuting them. I’ll start with the first word: God. “God” is a proposed entity that no one can prove the existence of, let alone communicate with or make claims as to its political or economic associations. The very claim made by the billboard is presumptuous and absurd.
How did Obama come to be associated with socialism? Do the people that paid to have that billboard ad created even know how to define socialism? Are they aware that elements of our economy are already socialistic? Socialism, like capitalism, is not an all-or-nothing ideology. Both exist in probably all economies to one degree or another. The United States is one of the least socialistic countries in the world, as is evidenced by our generally lower tax burden (especially for married people with kids) and reduced set of public services.[1] Yet our highways, social security system, public education system and other public programs are socialist in nature. Most other western countries are a more socialistic by varying degrees with different forms of universal health, and secure pensions and other services.
The association of Obama with socialism was made by opponents of health care reform. A government-sponsored universal heath care system would be by definition a socialist program, but as mentioned above, it would just be one of several. To brand Obama “socialist” because of if it simply inaccurate.
A socialist program does not have to be undesirable or inefficient. Our current fee-per-procedure system [2] makes a few people wealthy at the expense of everyone else. A large and growing number of Americans lack access to health care [3] yet we spend FAR more per capita on health care than ANY other country in the world [4]. Whether a hybrid system like Germany or France enjoy, or a government monopoly as in Canada [5], our predominantly capitalist system is the least efficient. More data available here: OECD.
California is the Greece of America
It was also in Georgia that I learned California is the Greece of America. This was told to me by my uncle’s landlord, who heard it from some right wing commentator on Fox “News.” The reference is to the EU’s need to bail Greece out of its financial crisis. The comparison is invalid, of course, but in the right wingoverse, facts are meaningless. It’s what you believe that is important.
California’s contribution to the American economy is massive – at 13% it is far larger than that of any other state.[6] In fact, the state’s economy ranks around eighth in the world, between Spain and Italy.[6][7][8][9] So why the comparison? California has been facing a huge budget deficit for the past few years.[10] However, California does not need a bailout from the federal government, and if it did, it would simply be recovering money it had already contributed via federal taxes.
Why the deficit? Major reasons include:
- the recent economy downturn and credit crisis [11]
- a substantial portion of the state income comes from income taxes on a small proportion of wealthy citizens. For example, in 2004, the richest 3% of state taxpayers paid approximately 60% of all state taxes. The taxable income of this population is highly dependent upon capital gains, which has been severely impacted by the stock market declines of this period.[12]
- Proposition 13, which essentially froze property values for tax purposes at until the property is resold.[13]
- government spending / programs that expanded during boom years
- the referendum system, which allows the public to get projects/policies into the state budget, overriding any central state control. (The public kept asking for things but would not raise taxes to pay for it.)[14]
- since 1978 California requires a super-majority (2/3) of the legislative body pass a budget, including increasing taxes. This has been a major obstacle for lawmakers who favor tax increases to close the budget deficit.[14]
- the artificial 2000 – 2001 electricity crisis, made possible by deregulation legislation instituted in 1996 by Governor Pete Wilson. The crisis cost $40bn to $45bn.[15]
Due to the size of our economy, we could resolve the budget deficit easily on our own – if we had the political will. California’s situation is not even remotely similar to that of Greece. We could bail ourselves out – Greece can’t.
And that is what I learned in Georgia.
1. http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/taxes/p148855.asp
2. http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/12/the-cost-of-care.html
3. http://www.cdc.gov/features/uninsured/
4. http://blogs.ngm.com/.a/6a00e0098226918833012876a6070f970c-800wi
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_nominal_GDP
7. http://www.lao.ca.gov/2004/cal_facts/2004_calfacts_econ.htm
8. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
9. http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTML/FS_DATA/LatestEconData/Data/Miscellaneous/Bbrank.xls
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9310_California_budget_crisis
11. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#Economy
12. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/09/MNGSVIO7NG1.DTL
13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29
14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%9310_California_budget_crisis
15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Electricity_Crisis
Dear Iran, you wouldn’t have “enemies” if you didn’t have a militaristic, right wing, religious extremist dominated government like, oh, the United States, Israel, and North Korea, which much like you, behave as if they have the right to do anything they want to anybody with impunity.
Sincerely, Rob
Iran cleric wants “special weapons” to deter enemy
TEHRAN, Iran – The hardline spiritual mentor of Iran’s president has made a rare public call for producing the “special weapons” that are a monopoly of a few nations — a veiled reference to nuclear arms.
The Associated Press on Monday obtained a copy of a book written by Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi in which he wrote Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce these “special weapons.”
Iran’s government, as well as its clerical hierarchy, have repeatedly denied the country is seeking nuclear weapons, as alleged by the U.S. and its allies.
The Security Council last week imposed a fourth round of sanctions in response to Tehran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which Iran maintains is only for its nuclear energy program, but could conceivably be used to produce material for weapons.
The new U.N. sanctions call for an asset freeze of another 40 additional companies and organizations, including 22 involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities.
Yazdi’s hardline views, including devotion to the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure to reappear ahead of judgement day, have had a strong impact on Ahmadinejad, who shows him more respect than any other senior cleric.
Yazdi’s book, “The Islamic Revolution, a Surge in Political Changes in History,” was written in 2005 and then reprinted last year, but would have only had a very limited circulation among senior clerics and would not have been widely known.
“The most advanced weapons must be produced inside our country even if our enemies don’t like it. There is no reason that they have the right to produce a special type of weapons, while other countries are deprived of it,” Yazdi said.
Yazdi is a member of the Assembly of Experts, a conservative body of 86 senior clerics that monitors Iran’s supreme leader and chooses his successor. He also heads the Imam Khomeini Educational and Research Institute, an Islamic think tank, in the holy city of Qom, 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the capital.
In his book, Yazdi said Iran must acquire the necessary deterrent weapons in order to be able to stand up to its enemies.
“Under Islamic teachings, all common tools and materialistic instruments must be employed against the enemy and prevent enemy’s military superiority,” he said.
He also said Muslims must not allow a few powers to monopolize certain weapons in their arsenal.
“From Islam’s point of view, Muslims must make efforts to benefit from the most sophisticated military equipment and get specific weapons out of the monopoly of powerful countries,” he said.
The last time a high ranking official made such remarks was in 2005 when Mohammad Javad Larijani, now a senior judiciary official, said Islam has not tied Iran’s hands in producing nuclear weapons.
But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has repeatedly denied that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons because Islam forbids weapons of mass destruction.
Khamenei has reportedly issued a fatwa, or religious decree, saying the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons was forbidden under Islam.
In May, a senior reformist cleric warned about the increasing power of Yazdi and his loyalists within the ruling system, calling them “a very dangerous and harsh current who won’t show mercy to anybody.”
Earlier this month, a hardline website called Yazdi an “Imam”, a title given only to Shiite Islam’s saints and the founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Such a title has not been awarded to Khamenei, Iran’s current leader.
I really hope the people administering the Census aren’t typical of the average competence of government workers, because if they are there’s a whole lotta waste goin’ on.
Tonight I arrived home to find a notice on our front door indicating that we had been visited by a Census worker. I knew what this meant. It meant that the government didn’t receive and record the Census questionnaire that I dutifully completed and sent in via the U.S. Postal Service several weeks ago. So I called the phone number on the notice and answered the questions over the telephone (my favorite part was telling the guy that I’m a male married to a male). I found myself wondering how many Census forms were sent in and never recorded, because ten years ago…
In 2000, I spent 90 minutes filling out the long questionnaire that I received when I lived with three roommates then dropped it into the mailbox in front of the building where I work. A few months later, much to my surprise and irritation, a Census worker showed up at our front door because the form I had wasted so much time completing fell into some federal black hole.
WTF? So far with the Census I am one for three (I was never visited in 1990 so I assume my survey was recorded). I realize that one person does not a sample size make, but it doesn’t look good for government efficiency, ya know?
Of course, the vast majority of Census workers are temporary and the program only ramps up once per decade so I suppose some inefficiency is inevitable, but like, how hard can it possibly be to enter completed surveys into a database?
From timwise.org:
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
So let’s begin.
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.
Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.
Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.
Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.
Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.
Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.
Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”
Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?
To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.
Game Over.
I know. I claim to start up the blog again then don’t do much with it. But, you see, I’ve been busy.
Back in late August or early September, before the cruise, I had a dream. An erotic dream. And I didn’t forget it.
It spun around in my mind for several days, then while we were on the cruise I started jotting it down into my netbook. Upon returning home, I continued to expand on it and by the end of September I had a ten page “chapter,” for lack of a better word. It told a short story – the first meeting of two very different people.
Since then, it has taken on a life of its own and in the past month, has taken over my life. When I’m alone, it’s all I think about. It consumes all of my free time (which I confess isn’t a whole lot). It has grown from ten pages to 150, from a sex scene to an epic tale of love, loyalty and loss between two men who could not be much more different. It has let me create an alternate history that spans twelve centuries and explore the resulting world. It has turned me into a writing machine.
The thing is, I LOVE IT. It it exciting and fun and entertaining and every time I think oh, I’m about half-way done, I find an additional story to tell. A background detail to explore. A character to develop. A historic event that didn’t turn out quite the same way as in our world.
So, this is what I’ve been up to, and I’m having a blast.
I’m going to publish it, even if I have to use blurb.com. When? I have no idea, but I will let you know. I’m at 51,564 words and counting.
Some of you are likely familiar with the Real Bad party that follows the Folsom Street Fair every year. For those of you who are not, it is a predominantly gay “circuit-party” type dance event. The web site describes Real Bad as follows:
REAL BAD is produced by Grass Roots Gay Rights West (GRGR/West), a local, all-volunteer non-profit committed to raising and distributing funds to grassroots organizations that strengthen the diverse populations that make up San Francisco’s LGBT community. REAL BAD is the only event of its kind that gives 100% of the money raised from ticket sales back to its beneficiaries.
 Ron, myself and Geoff I’ve been involved with Real Bad for a decade now. I was part of the “working group” of volunteers that make the party happen in 2001 and 2002, a host for the last ten years, and was honored to appear on the party’s promotional poster last year in 2009.
This year, because I simply do not have enough irons in the fire, I joined the working group again to help produce Real Bad XXII. I’m on the production committee so I’ll be involved in the logistics of physically making the party happen: lighting operations, equipment, lasers, photographers, entertainment / demonstrations, and so on. The good news is that I won’t be very busy with it until the party date approaches (Sunday, September 26th). The bad news is that I’ll be working on it all that weekend, including during the party. That’s okay though. When I told Fuad I’d be working during the party he said, “oh, good, then I don’t have to go [and miss work the next day].”
I’ve also added a few related photos to my flickr page if you are interested.
Finally, the GRGR/West board has been working on a new web site for Real Bad. I’ve seen the test version and I think it looks great. When it is complete I’ll post it here.
I know I haven’t made many posts since restarting the blog. I always seem to be way too busy, which is endlessly frustrating. I have the same amount of time as everyone else? Right? How I spend it is my choice, right?
If I think about it, my number one time suck is work. I spend more time (around 55 hours per week) at work than anywhere else, including my bed. Number two? Sleeping (around 49 hours). Number three? The gym (10 – 12 hours). Number four is probably commuting to and from work and the gym.
What do I do with the rest of my time? Write? Eat? Hang out with my husband? Waste time on the internet? I’m not sure, but it doesn’t leave much time for blogging or Arabic, which I really need to get busy with again. One thing I can say for certain is that I spend an average of one hour a week watching television. But somehow, I have no time for Arabic.
Which brings me to facebook. I really can’t say how much time I spend on it. During the day, it is a minute here or a minute there. In the evening, it might be 30 minutes or so. But in an effort to free up some time, I’m taking a month off from facebook. As an experiment, I will not sign into facebook during the month of April (except to respond to or delete my existing messages, which will be done by this weekend.)
So, facebook friends, I will see you on May 1st.
|
|
