Ah, Larry, we hardly knew ye!

Since there are only 7 or so years between Senator Craig's age and my own, I have some residual memories of the sort of urges with which the senator must deal.

If you came to age in the 50's, and your sexual proclivities were anything more than the "missionary position," you had a lot of what have come to be known as "issues." We dealt with them as best we could.

There was a joke back in the late 50's, early 60's, which went something like this: An irate queen, on her first plane ride, in high dudgeon, demands imperiously, "What do you mean, 'This plane doesn't stop at the nearest Greyhound bus station'?!?"

"Tea room" cruising, as delineated in Laud Humphrey's book, Tea Room Trade, was a rite of passage for nascent gays back then.

And there were rituals which were rigidly followed, among which were the tapping toes, and the caress of the bottom of the stall walls, followed by the come-hither-flick of the index finger.

It was exciting. Unfortunately, it was, all too often, the only way to satisfy the drive.

I would have thought we'd all grown out of it, what with the plethora of places in which we might make contact today.

I guess not.

My title is wrong, Larry. We know ye all too well.

We also know there's absolutely no excuse for tea room cruising in the 21st century.

Somehow, in some ways, Larry, you're still stuck in the 1950's. That's too bad. Look what you've accomplished in spite of your sexual drives. Imagine the heights you might've reached had our society been less puritanical.

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Keeper? Who Needs a Keeper?

Well, perhaps a name tag?

Anecdote 1: Two Sundays ago, I decided at the last minute to catch a matinee of The Simpsons. I dashed to a local movie house, paid my admission, and was making my way to Theatre 6 for an 11:45 showing. It was 11:40.

As is my wont, I decided to make a pit stop, against the ol' prostate giving me some grief over the next couple of hours.

I went down a labyrinthine hallway, did my business, returned to the original hall, dashed into the theater--noted with some satisfaction that there were only 4 others in attendance, and sat down to wait for the inevitable previews to begin.

I waited. And waited. After some 10 minutes, some patrons began to trickle in. "Idiots. They almost missed the opening of the movie. If the previews had started on time, they'd've been out of luck."

More waiting. "What the heck is wrong with this theater? Can't they read a clock?" Waiting. More late patrons. Waiting.

Finally, I couldn't take it any longer. I got up, determined to confront the manager and register my complaint about not meeting published starting times. I exited the theater, looked back at the individual marquee, to see if they'd changed the start time only to discover that Theater 5, in which I had been waiting, was not the location of The Simpsons. That was being shown in Theatre 6. On time. I missed the first 5 minutes of the movie.

Anecdote 2: A couple of days later, I stepped out of the shower, dried off, put aloe vera on my face, gel in my hair, brushed my hair, and began putting aloe vera on my body (crepe-like skin, alas). After slathering my arms with the aloe vera, I discovered that somehow the hair gel bottle had substituted itself for the aloe gel bottle. Alas (again), hair gel doesn't eliminate the crinkly skin effect; it sort of concretizes it.

Anecdote 3): A day or so after the hair gel dilemma (of course I left it on--waste not, want not), I for some reason decided to change my routine for adding sweetener to my coffee. I stood over the garbage bag, tore off the tops of two packets, and proceeded to dump the sweetener into the garbage, while carefully not dropping the discardable town-off tops.

Now, I don't know if all of this means anything or not, but I have to wonder. I'd feel a lot better if I knew about what I should be wondering, though.

Where was I?

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A Break (if you don't mind)

The news out of the Middle East is more unpleasant than not; the news out of Washington isn't much better.

How about a moment away from the sturm und drang (that's a phrase I learned from theatre history--it describes a time in German dramaturgy--no charge) and try for a bit of, well, if not levity, at least an amused befuddlement.

A few days ago, the Decider underwent a colonoscopy. It's a procedure most people over a certain age undergo. Another procedure which is regular for gentlemen of a certain age is the digital prostate exam. We (oops! Now you know!) should have one every year.

This year I went in for a physical, fully expecting the old finger (that's a delightful message in one of the posters for Michael Moore's Sicko--you know, where he's pulling on a rubber glove and smiling a tad evilly); but, by the end of the session, it became clear the digital exam would not be happening. Conversation ensued.

Me, "Um. Aren't you going to do a prostate exam?"

Him, "No. I don't do those. If the PSA [blood test] seems abnormal, I just refer patients to a proctologist."

Me, "Huh?"

Him, "My fingers are too short to reach the prostate. So I don't even bother. I know I won't be able to feel it anyway."

Me. "Oh...um...OK...I guess."

(Well, it's less depressing than focusing on Iraq or the Bush administration!)

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Epilogue to an Epilogue

My ol' buddy over at Digital Fishwrap has a blog posting called "Epilogue to How long does it take to get over someone completely." This, is an attempt at an answer.

Dewey Doga--grade one; Donald Savoy--grades three and four; Anthony Sala--grade ten; Dick Wilson--grades eleven and twelve; Roger Puckett--college sophomore year; Jerry Jones--college junior year; Al Parker--college senior year; Larry Brucker--1964; George Dursthoff--1965; Keith Townsley--1965 through 1974 (w/overlaps); Rex Walker--1974-75; Gavin Trowsdale--2000.

You don't "get over...completely."

What you do is go on living.

A couple of song lyrics leap to mind: "I tipped my hat and slowly rode away;" "Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again."

Best advice there is.

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It can't be that easy. Can it?

My friend Nikki refuses to consider the importance of religion in the Iraqi misadventure or in the war against Islamic fundamentalists.

Nikki pishes, piffles, poshes and pshaws, "All we have to do is to drop a few million iPods over the Middle East, and it's over."

I, of course, Dear Reader, fulminate (I don't know what it means, but it looks good and sounds and feels delicious when spoken) "Boo! Organized religion! If Islam can be considered organized."

Events, however, have their way of confounding clarity. Listening to NPR's coverage and reading the print stories out of Iraq regarding yesterday's victory of the Iraqi soccer team against the Saudis, one has to concede that distraction is, indeed, a powerful tool for peace. One might also say that the religious leaders there might not be so powerful against the 21st century as I once thought.

Chagrin! And hope.

Huzzah, Lions of the Two Rivers!!! (One Kurd, one Sunni, one Shia--teamwork more important than theocracy or politics!)

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Mad Men Revived

The AMC original show, Mad Men, returns us to the late 1950's, prior to Nixon's first presidential run. If you don't watch it, Dear Reader, may I humbly (moi?) suggest you do so. It will give you a theatrical look at certain attitudes driven by the testosterone of the day; those attitudes, well, vestiges of them, could very well be the ones with which we find ourselves at odds today.

Women in the office are treated with indifference, if not disrespect. The protagonist cheats on his wife, in a retrospective moment he muses to his mistress, "I don't know if you have everything...or nothing." Not even a twinge if the question also applies to himself.

Although Alpha Male is a relatively new word of the day, the series two openers reek of it.

As a late teenager during those years, I find the memories stirred by this series to be disturbing. I couldn't understand the concept of male superiority, and I didn't care if I didn't have it. Others cared very much that they have it.

The blinkered view of the world which the WASP evinces in this series is quite similar to the view which we see the Bush administration displaying. They are correct; they have unflinching faith in themselves; anyone who disagrees will be shunted aside or destroyed. "Maybe I should stop paying you," says the 1959 protagonist to an underling who dares to engage in a second round of debate.

The equivalent exchange of 2003: "We need 500,000 troops." "You're irrelevant."

And everyone smokes. The smoking pregnant, drinking women in Hairspray were funny. The WASP wife on the shrink's couch smoking isn't funny. It's tragic.

We survived the Eisenhower years. Surely we'll survive the Bush II years. In 40 years will there be a television show which exposes the foolishness of 2007?

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July Pot Pourri

1) Noticed on a walk in the neighborhood: "Private Community." Isn't that a bit of an oxymoron?

2) If you missed Maureen Dowd yesterday (and, if you don't have Time Select, you did), you missed this great line from the end of her column:

"Mr. Gates captured the sadness we feel about American kids trapped in a desert waiting to be blown up, sent there by men who once refused to go to a warped war themselves." (Quick reference to Bob Gates tearing up at a recent Marine event and Vietnam.)

3) In TownhallToday.com (July 23, 2007), someone finally added "Islamic" as an adjective to the "war on terror." War on Islamic terrorists is certainly a more accurate description of what were engaged in than war on terror. You go! RWNSes.

4) Watching "The McLaughlin Group" on Saturday last, I noticed that Tony Blankley doesn't look at his fellow panelists while he's developing a point. He looks down (at notes?) until the end of his presentation, then he looks at others in the eye. He does this in direct response, too. McLaughlin asks him a question, Blankley glances at the host, then casts his eyes down until the end of his response. Strange. It's disconcerting in a way; it makes me feel he's being less than straightforward--rather like he can't look someone in the eye while being duplicitous...sort of like a six year old.

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Alas, the conundrum of the ages...

...today in Islamabad, the Muslim cleric who was the leader of those extremists holed up in a mosque got his wish. He's dead, according to news reports.

Willa Cather ends "Paul's Case" with these words--"the immense design of things." The dead cleric, like Paul, has gone into that immense design.

As a person who simply cannot accept the validity of the anthropomorphized deity of the book religions, I find it somewhat sad that there is no real Great Satan waiting to welcome this murderer into his arms. Nor is there a carnal festival awaiting his followers.

Nothing is there, guys, except a vast indifference.

Too bad. It would be nice to know the guy was frying for eternity.

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Islam's Peacefulness?

It's the same song, and it doesn't change, even the verses stay the same.

In the Riverside, California, primary newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, one Mariam Moustafa offers a letter, critical of a Michelle Malkin column (printed June 22), including this excerpt: "According to the Quran, "Allah loves those who are fair (and just)" (Quran 49:9). The Quran reflects the righteousness that a true Muslim must possess. If Islam were truly a religion of violence, then Muslims would not have been able to peacefully coexist with people of other faiths, such as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Zoroastrians, since the 7th century."

As far as Moustafa goes, there is no problem. However, with the current tactics of the Taliban in Afghanistan using non-combatants as shields, of the Sunni and Shia extremists using suicide murderers against each other, and the continuing references (although there is some question about the accuracy of the translation) of the deity seeing to the carnal desires of the "martyrs" in Paradise, she will need to offer a little more than a single line from the Quran if she wishes to convince non-Muslims of the ability to "peacefully coexist" in the 21st century.

I hope she will do so--sooner rather than later.

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Sincerely Sincere or just Sincere?

The first time someone used the line on me was back in the 1970's when the Anita Bryant brouhaha was building over in Dade County, Florida. "She's being sincere."

Maybe. The problem with that excuse for a questionable action is that most people who engage in what others might feel unthinkable behavior are sincere. Don't you think Lenin was sincere? Stalin? Hitler? Bull Connor?

Sincerity shouldn't let people off the hook.

President Bush is often said to be sincere...in his belief in his Iraqi policies...in his tax policies...in his signing statements...in his disregard for the Geneva Conventions on torture...

So what? He's wrong.

Let's not hear more about how sincerely Mr. Bush believes the jail sentence for Mr. Libby was "excessive." The president's sincerity has nothing to do with the justice of the sentence.

The real question for Republican Party sycophants as Mr. Bush enters the final 18 months of his presidency is whether or not RNC members are more sincerely dedicated to the U.S. Constitution or to the RNC.

I sincerely hope Mr. Bush finds Jesus again--this time to stop trashing our system of government, now that his liver is healing.

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She's b-a-a-a-a-ck!!!!!!

Some variation on the old Lily Tomlin Ernestine schtick--We are A T and T; we are omnipotent!--has returned to amuse and infuriate the public. She's called a supervisor for the ATT GoPhone program. Here's the situation.

My GoPhone year was set to expire on July 28, 2007. AT&T has graciously been sending me reminders that I'm about to lose my unused time if I don't renew for the $100 yearly cost.

Dutifully, like the good soldier I am, I hied myself over to Radio Shack, zipped out the ol' AmEx card, swiped, and signed. When I returned home to check the webpage to be certain the account showed the new balance, I was disturbed to note that the expiration date had become June 30, 2008, rather than July 28, 2008, which I had expected.

After all, doesn't renew your "year's" imply that the renewal will commence on the anniversary date?

A telephone call this morning to the 888 number didn't do any good at all. My first assistant, Leslie, was helpful, but powerless to change the date. The system is set up to start the year from the date of purchase, not the anniversary date. (Remember, there is no mention of this that I can recall from the email reminders.)

After assuring Leslie that I understood the details of Corporate Headquarters, I said I'd still like to have the address or the telephone number of someone with whom I could register my dissatisfaction with having "lost" a month.

Leslie connected me with Jennifer. Jennifer, after not having much luck with telling me I hadn't lost any money (Jen, hon, that wasn't the issue. What I lost was the ability to plan on how I would be spending that money. I lost flexibility.), thus assuaging my desire to complain, finally said that she could give me some information about where to send a complaint, "but that won't do you any good."

And there it was. You want to complain about AT&T? You foolish little man. Don't you know we're om-knee-po-tent?!?

Welcome back, Ernestine.

I
Now, is Judge Harold Greene still around?

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Beware (Sometimes) the Affable Politician

Waaaaay back in the nineties, some pols in the Republican party decided to push a "good ol' boy" into the national spotlight.



Gingrich was on the rise, due to his success with using C-Span (talking for hours on end to a tv audience in a virtually empty House chamber), but his style was a bit grating, and he had a wandering eye, which could come back to bite him--and the party.



So, by default, the pols decided to place their trust on the first-born of George H. W. and Barbara. He was, by all accounts, eminently electable: good looking, connected, and affable. To top it off, he was easily handled--a schmoozer who could be schmoozed.

Unfortunately, it looked for a while that their boy wouldn't make it. With a little assist from "activist" judges, however, he made it to the prize and we've been taken in with this affableness ever since.

Nice guy. And look how brave he was standing on that rubble. He's so sincere. I'd like to have a beer with him (except he doesn't drink--anymore). So what if he doesn't read the papers? So what if Jesus is his most admired politician? He's a good ol' boy--just look at him. How could you not trust him?

Fast forward. We've been screwed by "sincere" affability.

John Roberts--such a nice lookin' fella. Smart, too. Deferential. Polite to his elders. Clean cut. A real Amurrican boy. Make a fine lookin' Chief Justice. Ol' Sam Alito. Eyetalian, but a hard worker. Pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Avuncular. Make a fine Associate Justice.

Fast forward. June, 2007. Roberts and Alito siding with the "conservatives" against the consumer, against free speech, against local attempts to fight racian discrimination.

Once more, an affable screwing.

On the other hand--this weekend before the 4th of July, Good ol' boy George will be hosting Vlad the Russian screwer. Since our schmoozer will be in fine fettle--what with using the family compound to impress the erstwhile commie KGB about the rewards of affability. This might be a chance for Gob-George to affably screw Vlad.

It'd be a nice change for us--to get something good for the country out of affability.

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Plan B (Well, no one else seems to want to do it!)

Brainstorming for elements to include in Plan B (non-military efforts for the "ideological confrontation" of the century) is a worthwhile pastime; it might even be a necessary diversion--if that isn't an oxymoron.

Here's a start. Gentle Reader, feel free to add.

1) Let's develop template posters which will be placed in neighborhoods which celebrate the "martyrdom" of suicidal jihadists. Our competing posters would proclaim that there is no "Paradise" in store for anyone who murders a child in the name of Islam, nor is such a person worthy of the title of martyr.

2) On the neighborhoods of madrasas, let's drop leaflets which assert that God is not a pimp, that it is blasphemous to teach, as well as to believe, that God would provide a cohort of women to see to the after-death carnal pleasures of child-murderers.

3) Let us proclaim that dressing to express one's religious beliefs is a personal badge of honor, it loses its religiosity when it is enforced at the point of a sword, knife, or a gun barrel. Further, it is an insult to God to teach that the female is less worthy than a male. God has no gender.

4) While we are doing the above, let us not exclude any Judeo-Christian teachings or practices which are suspect--which more than likely are inspired by the inclinations of humans rather than of a deity. In other words, erase from religious teachings anything that smacks of human emotion rather than the objective balances of the universe.

5) Let us acknowledge that we do not and cannot know the nature of the Deity. All writings are, essentially, metaphorical, and that is especially true of religious writings. We speak of the unspeakable in terms which we can understand; we cannot understand something beyond our experiences; we must not continue in the error that the God of which we speak is a supra-human by necessity of the limits of our languages.

Aristotle's Prime Mover is beyond our ken. We do the best we can, but our best cannot be definitive.

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Snowjob?

Dear Gentle Reader (both of you, sometime), you must go to this link for Salon.com's War Room and read the entry entitled "The good news about George W. Bush." Then you must read the comments.

The entry details a comment made by presidential spokesmouth, Tony Snow, when asked "...whether the Bush administration "feels any responsibility" for the split among Palestinians..."

I won't give away the joke. Nor will I give away the wonderful comments. You won't be disappointed.

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A Light at the end of the Ex-Gay Tunnel?

"A hit! A hit! A palpable hit!" (If you don't have to ask, thank an English teacher!)

It didn't make the national feeds yet, but the Los Angeles Times reports on an up-coming "Freedom Conference" to be held by Exodus International. (Those are the "ex-gay" people.)

Here's the on-line title as well as the subtitle: New ground in debate on 'curing' gays. Christian ministries who see homosexuality as a treatable disorder are starting to think that choice may not be a factor.

A leading proponent of tossing "ex-gay" into the trash bin of history turns out to be none other than Alan Chambers the director of Exodus. The money quote from Mr. Chambers: "By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete."

It seems Mr. Chambers, now a husband and father, "...has mostly conquered his own attraction to men..."

The operative word is "mostly," one presumes, which demands of Mr. Chambers more honesty than heretofore he has shown. Good personal progress. His orientation never was, never will be, a choice. It cannot be escaped; it cannot be eradicated. It can be handled, should one choose; that's the only choice.

Discarding the oxymoronic ex-gay is a good step towards eliminating cultural biases against differing sexual orientations.

Let's have more attention paid to precise language.

Good start, Mr. Chambers. Now, get the rest of your organization in line.

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An Anti-Semitic Semite?

Thomas Friedman's column in today's The New York Times deals with a proposed "boycott" of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by Britain’s University and College Union. (It's Times Select, sorry.)

Friedman tells us of several Palestinians who received their Ph.D.s at a recent graduation ceremony, and his point is that, rather than calling for a boycott, the Brits should acknowledge the benefits to the Palestinian people which will accrue from these new doctorates. Further, the Brits should take the lead in sponsoring other Palestinian doctoral candidates world-wide.

Friedman ends his writing, however, with a version of an old song: "But just singling out Israeli universities for a boycott, in the face of all the other madness in the Middle East — that’s what anti-Semites would do."

My question is, when did anti-Semitic come to mean, in reality, anti-Hebrew or anti-Jew?

A quick reference to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, defines semite as an umbrella term including ancient tribes including "Hebrews and Arabs," as well as descendants of those peoples, and the definition is dated 1848.

A subsequent entry for Semitism specifically refers to "policy favorable to Jews" "and predisposition in favor of Jews" (1851).

So in three short years an extension of the word lost its all-encompassing meaning.

And today, in the muddle of language, we have a word which, under scrutiny, causes some confusion. Today, we have the potential semantic disaster of having an Arab opponent of Israeli government policies being labeled an anti-Semitic semite.

Unless, of course, you have something else to do on a cool Sunday morning.

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Stop! Take a Breath! Now...

The re-incarceration of Ms Paris Hilton has been given entirely too much attention. (Er...too much attention, in the first place, is given to insignificant people.)

Remember, Ms Hilton was first cited last September for DUI. Her license was suspended. In February of this year she was stopped at 11 p.m. for speeding and driving without headlights.

Subsequently, the court became aware of the suspended license (Hilton's publicist Elliot Mintz insists the star was not aware her driving permit had been suspended. Please!).

Remember: the original violation was for DUI, the second for speeding and driving at night without lights. Ms Hilton put the lives of others at risk with her behavior. She chose to do this; the responsibility is hers.

While the death of others "diminishes" me, so, too, does the humilitation of others. I am diminished by Ms Hilton's humiliation, but I am also empowered by the insistance of the court that an adult take responsibility for behavior. If you do the crime, you do the time.

Remember, before too many people tsk that the punishment of this young woman is too harsh, that her behavior was irresponsible. The social contract demands she be held accountable for that irresponsible behavior.

Hilton's celebrity should play no part in the adjudication of justice.

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Happy Memorial Day?

An admired acquaintance, Cindy Uken, produces an eponymous website dedicated, primarily, to local politics.

Today Uken uses the space for a poem by CDR Kelly Strong, USCG (Ret), which is a nice use of her space on this special day.

I am struck, though, by Uken's use of the generic "Happy Memorial Day!"

Happy? Somehow that seems counterintuitive to the underlying somberness of the day. What, though, would be more appropriate? Certainly Sad wouldn't work. Sober? Is there a single word which encompasses the costs of Patriotism--as well as our acceptance of those costs?

The word-problem is certainly larger than the generic "Happy," which we use for virtually all holidays. It extends to such facile phrases as "War on Terror." One cannot, logically, war against terror. Terror is a tactic. One cannot bomb a tactic--an idea.

We need to practice more accuracy in our diction. Where, though, to start?

"It's Memorial Day."

"Ah. Memorial Day."

"Reflective Memorial Day."

?

Thank you for the poem, Cindy. Have an Appropriate Memorial Day!

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Et tu, Brute?

Mr. Bush used Gen. Petraeus' name so often during this morning's press conference that it might do the general some good to watch his back.

Come September, given the President's penchant for not accepting responsibility for the wrongness of this battlefront in the "ideological struggle," if the "surge" isn't dramatically successful, somehow the responsibility for the failure will come to roost upon the general's shoulder boards..."It was his idea; he made me do it. I just listened to the general."

God bless the troops.

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Fulness of Oneself

Words and memories and metaphors, Dear Reader, make up the universe of pleasure.

Not quite a week after the death of Jerry Falwell we have another interesting bit of a rememberance. Check out Larry Flynt's piece in the Los Angeles Times today.

My favorite quote, "He was definitely selling brimstone religion and would do anything to add another member to his mailing list. But in the end, I knew what he was selling, and he knew what I was selling..."

"Selling" is the operative word in Mr. Falwell's life. He was very good at it. What he sold most was himself. He was handsomely rewarded for his efforts. Look at pictures of his early days in broadcasting. Look at pictures of his final days in life. He became a corporate fat cat--the "Rev. Ike" of the white Baptist-types.

Rev. Ike and Pastor Jer. Two American success stories.

What pleasure to be reminded of Rev. Ike at this moment in history.

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