Coming Out Day 2009

Today approximately a quarter million people marched on Washington to assert the equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Today was also National Coming Out Day. And, not coincidentally, today one of my best friends came out to his parents.

He just called me and gave me the news. I'm actually still a little teary. He called his parents and individually told them that he is one of millions of gay people in the United States. They told him what he always knew they would say: that they love him regardless of his sexual orientation; and that they had always wondered anyway if there was something they didn't know. It sounded like the quintessential coming out story, circa 2009.

The days when parents shunned their gay kids are coming to an end, as my friend found out. When parents realize that nothing changes when they find out that their son or daughter is gay, just that they have more information about their child, well, it's not 1920 any more. We aren't placing kids in mental institutions (by and large). Kids are not being rendered homeless by coming out (by and large). There is still a long way to go, and too many lives are needlessly ruined by coming out, but the direction and the trends are unmistakable. The process of coming out involves less stigma than ever before, both for the outer and the outee(s).

Coming out is the first and necessary step for gay people to assert their equality, and it is the first an necessary step to pressure the government to recognize it. The more gay people that a single person knows, the more they support gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnership benefits, open and honest service in the military, and a host of other issues on which the government sees fit to hold us to the status of second class citizens. When people know gay people, they are less likely to want to discriminate against them. The more people that are out, the closer the LGBT community gets to a critical mass when fantasies of essential legal reform become reality.

That's why what my friend did today is so important. He put a human face on a group of people that are stereotyped as inhuman. I told him that today is one of the most important days of his life, and it is. Standing up to say that "gay" is more than a two-dimensional stereotype or an idea that religious leaders exploit to further their own power is the most powerful and important weapon we have in the fight for equality. Today, we're one step closer.

Hiatus Almost Concluded

I've been such a slacker-blogger! Trial and appeal (diff. cases) and I have no creative writing juices left to blabber about random things. But there will be more to come, assuming I find anything interesting to say about the world.

Working on an appeal to the Cal Supreme Court right now and it is FASCINATING. This is the kind of lawyering I love to do. It's a little bittersweet because had I gotten better grades in law school it could be my regular gig. As it is now though, I'll have to wait it out for awhile. Thank god I'm so preternaturally patient . . . .

Hierarchy of Football Season

The following rules must be observed at all times, in descending order of importance.

1. Root for the Steelers

If the Steelers aren't playing,

2. Root against the Browns

If the Steelers or Browns aren't playing,

3. Root against the Ravens

If the Steelers, Browns or Ravens aren't playing

4. Root against the Patriots

If none of the above are playing,

5. Root for the team playing the AFC North team.

If none of the above are playing,

6. Root for the AFC team. No one likes the NFC.

If it's only two NFC teams playing, just root for Tom Brady to break his toe on the way to his morning shower. It will happen sooner or later anyway, and might as well let it roll before the playoffs heat up.

District 9: Nah.

DISTRICT 9! You may recall how pumped I was to see this movie when I saw the preview during Bruno. Well....

1. The concept is very interesting: after an alien invasion, humans exploit the aliens instead of aliens exploiting humans. I don't think I've ever seen that before in a sci-fi movie. It was an interesting twist.

2. I read a review prior to seeing the film that talked about the apartheid allegory. (The aliens are in Johannesburg). That, too, was a chin-scratcher, and hopefully I would have picked that up without having it explained to me beforehand. (Although, literal animal I am, I wouldn't put money on it).

3. I love alien movies, as I mentioned. But I really wish D9 would have focused more on the initial mother ship landing. I know it's been done to death, but the film opened with this mothership just hovering over Johannesburg, where it had been for the past two decades. I like how the focus was on the aliens living among us, but we could have fleshed it out a little better to begin with. Also, while the producers try to give aliens human qualities, they did not really show how the aliens would have acted absent earthly influence. Showing an alien an eviction notice and having him sign it was beyond parody for me, and I think that's where I started to get irrevocably irritated.

4. The aliens' appearance was too cheesy. I'm sick of aliens looking like insects/monsters. I don't know what aliens WOULD look like, but insects is not high on my list of probables. The alien father-son thing was annoying too.

5. It took me until No. 5 to realize that I have nothing to say about this movie that's even remotely interesting. I guess when the miniseries V is my high water mark of alien movies (including in the important area of historical allegory) other movies will have to excel a little more to capture my fancy. I guess this means I was disappointed by this movie. Maybe because the movie is simply depressing. Watching humans dominate and enslave other creatures, human or not, is not really my idea of a good time. (Cf. Schindler's list, which is "good," I guess, but is really kind of a horrible way to spend three hours). But this effort lacked in many other ways besides the negativity inherent in the story.

And that's that. Recommended? No, not really, especially if you're a fan of the genre. What is Meryl Streep doing next? (Answer: oh. Never mind).

Root Causes

I can't even tell you the tangents I followed to stumble across this YouTube clip (cf. that one day during 1L when I was looking up something about the Rule in Shelley's Case [shudder] on wikipedia, and ended up reading about various queens' crown jewels for over an hour), but I am seriously amazed at how pro-war the media was back in 2003--even more so than I remember.

I recall being a relatively sentient being at that time too, but this intro clip to CBS coverage of the beginning of the Iraq war is the most cheerleadery thing I've ever seen. Actually, the intro graphics frame war as a video game. Military theme, US flag v. Iraqi flag, green night vision. Jesus. No wonder the vast majority of this country was so blase about invading a country without provocation. It was portrayed as an adventure!

This kind of media performance will be taught in propaganda awareness classes for the next century, assuming anyone ever thinks of teaching such a class. Take a look:

Public Service Announcement

The following people are vastly overrated:

• Johnny Depp
• Demitri Martin
• Tom Hanks
• Jason Varitek
• Harry Reid

This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

With Many Grains of Salt...

I pass on this from the NY Times:

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

I would also add that "harden[ed] Republican opposition" has been inevitable since before Obama was elected, and that he might have saved himself some political capital and the country a lot of time and significant unrest had he decided to push for this process earlier. And I must say that I'm glad to see this option at least discussed in public, rather than allowing Republicans' complaints to dominate the narrative. Whether this is anything more than just words, though, remains to be seen. Count me among the skeptics.

Um, WTF

For some reason that I have thus far failed to grasp, conservative Beck-heads have decided to start bringing their assault rifles to President Obama's town hall meetings.

A dozen armed people, including one man with a rifle slung over his shoulder, protested today outside a Phoenix convention hall where President Barack Obama was speaking, a police spokesman said.

Carrying an unconcealed weapon is legal in Arizona, and the police didn’t arrest any of the protesters, who were demonstrating their right to bear arms, Phoenix Police Department spokesman Andy Hill said.

* * *

The incident marks the third in a week in which guns have been linked to an Obama event. On Aug. 11, police arrested a man for having a loaded, unlicensed gun in his car near a New Hampshire school where Obama later held a health-care forum, USA Today reported. Another man outside that event displayed a gun in a holster on his leg, the paper said.

I am an ardent civil libertarian. I believe the Bill of Rights should be interpreted expansively, and I believe its provisions should apply to the states. I support the Second Amendment right bear arms as both an individual right (as District of Columbia v. Heller had it) as well as a collective right. More power to the people.

But.

There is absolutely no reason to exercise that right when the president of the United States is in the vicinity. First of all, you can rest assured that security is relatively high. But the main concern I have is, why would anyone want to do this? To frighten other protesters or citizens who attend the event? To incite a riot? To wait for an opportunity to do the unthinkable? It absolutely amazes me that this is within the law and, more importantly, that the Secret Service or local law enforcement didn't drag these guys away kicking and screaming (and, probably, shooting).

The first black president should have unprecedented security. He probably does have unprecedented security. But I think we need to go the extra step and decide as a people that perhaps allowing assault rifles at presidential forums isn't necessarily the best way to see to a high minded debate. These are serious issues the country is facing. We need to debate them free of these absurd distractions, and free of the possibility of an American nightmare.

Hey Guess What?

The public option is dead. I'm incredibly disappointed, but I can't say I'm surprised. Time and time again, this administration has shown a cowardice that simply defies logic. Obama was elected with 365 electoral votes. He has a 20-vote majority in the Senate. He has a 78-vote majority in the House. Over the past two election cycles, Republicans have lost fifteen Senate seats and dozens and dozens of House seats. The American electorate decisively repudiated them. And Obama and the Democrats are caving in to Sarah Palin's "death panels" nonsense, and to a band of political ignorants who assert to any news anchor willing to listen (and there are plenty) that providing health care to everyone reeks of fascism and is the first step to internment camps.

I honestly don't know what the deal is here. Democrats are so terrified to exercise power, they actually deserve to lose it. Anyone remember the war funding catastrophes in 2007? Again there, the Democrats were elected to put an end to the war in Iraq. But they passed every supplemental bill George W. Bush sent to them. Why? Because they were afraid of what the Republicans would say. They were afraid of the political debate. Well, debate! You're congresspeople! Many of you came from law and business--not for the faint of heart--and regardless, now you're politicians. Debate is part of the daily life. I don't know what a political party has come to when every move it makes is based on fear of the opposition, rather than on assertively and unapologetically doing the job it was elected to do.

This cowardice isn't good for Obama and the Democrats. They have to know that. Hillary Clinton would not have backed down on her health care plan like this. She knows to go for the jugular. (Yes, she lost the Democratic nomination, thus potentially disproving my point, but Democrats are too nice. She would have destroyed John McCain, she would have whipped Congress into shape, and she would probably have a health care bill on her desk by now). So what gives?

I really thought the stimulus debate would have taught Obama that negotiating with Republicans on matters of national importance is a fool's errand. The Republicans have no incentive whatsoever to be bipartisan. If they assist Obama in passing major legislation, Obama gets all the credit. If they stop major legislation, the Republicans appear strong and Obama weak. It's a zero-sum game, as Matthew Yglesias describes:

But partisan politics is zero-sum. A “win” for the Democrats is a “loss” for Republicans. And I the predominant thinking in the Republican Party at the moment is that inflicting legislative defeats on Democrats will lead to electoral defeats for Democrats. That makes the GOP hard to bargain with.

Exactly. This is not a hard concept to grasp. The fact that the Democrats have not yet grasped it is really disappointing. The Republicans have no business governing this country, but the Democrats are practically inviting them to win back a ton of lost seats next November.

Now 2012. Sigh....

It looks like California Equality's attempt to put gay marriage back on the ballot is dead until at least 2012. I think this is unfortunate, and probably unwise from a political perspective.

A recent poll in California found that almost a solid majority approve of gay marriage:

Among the biggest changes in attitude was the increasing support for gay marriage, now favored by 49 percent of Californians and opposed by 44 percent. In 1977, voters were opposed by a 62-to-31 percent ratio.

The understandable outrage in both the LGBT community and, surprisingly, in much of the straight community following the "leadership's" failed "strategy" for beating Proposition 8 has created a backlash of support for gay marriage following the November referendum. Waiting until 2o12 to capitalize on this backlash is a mistake.

The main reason skipping 2010 is a mistake in my mind is because President Obama is not on the ballot in 2010. Had Hillary Clinton been on the 2008 ballot instead of Obama, Proposition 8 may well have failed. Ironically, it is probable that Obama's astronomical African-American turnout in November likely tipped the scales against gay marriage, since African-Americans in California are exceedingly likely to oppose gay marriage (by a 70-30 margin). I can't see how Obama is doing anything to cause his African-American base to desert him in the next presidential election. And when African-Americans show up to vote for Obama, they will largely stick around to vote against reinstating gay marriage.

If, however, Obama isn't on the ballot to ratchet up African-American turnout, a measure reinstating gay marriage has a better chance of passing. (I acknowledge that if Obama isn't on the ballot, fewer younger people will vote, and fewer younger people means fewer votes for gay marriage, but I think the Obama differential with respect to the African-American vote is stronger here than with respect to the youth vote).

This is the problem with the LGBT civil rights leadership outside of New England legislatures and Iowa courthouses at this time: there is a continued, fundamental misreading of the particular states' electorates. In 2008, organizers in California were afraid to humanize gay people, and were actually afraid to articulate the word "gay," thus giving credence to fence-sitters' uneasiness. In 2009, organizers believe they still have work to do to persuade voters, and they won't be ready to put gay marriage to a vote by 2010 -- when actual persuasion itself could have been sufficient back in 2008 even given the Obama effect. And so, having learned the wrong lesson, they'll wait until 2012, when Obama is back on the ballot, to try it again.

Don't get me wrong: I believe everyone is persuadable, and that the trends are moving in our direction. We may well win this battle in 2012. I just don't have confidence in our self-anointed political leadership to understand what people are thinking, and to understand how to craft an effective message to those people, and when the optimal time is to send that message. I have to hope they're getting closer, but we aren't there yet. I guess I should be glad that there are three more years between now and then.

The Wrong Clinton

Ok, I posted this on Reader earlier today, but I love it. Hillary Clinton is one of the most accomplished individuals in government today. She was pilloried during the Democratic primary campaign for daring to suggest that her experience as first lady--which included meeting dozens and dozens of foreign leaders--counted as experience for the presidency. Excuse me, but, you know, it did. How much easier would it be to be president if you already know most of the leaders with whom you have to work on an international stage? I'm not suggesting (nor was Clinton) that such familiarity is unobtainable on its own, but to say that she was somehow being disingenuous by stating that fact was ridiculous.

Anyhoo, so today in Congo, Clinton was asked what her husband thinks about some China/World Bank situation with which I am completely unfamiliar. She snapped, and she was right to snap. Who cares what President Clinton thinks? I hate that he still overshadows her when she is the nation's chief diplomat, but let's face it: the situation would be the same even if she were president now. This woman has endured so much insanity for so long, it kills me that she still has to, in the words of the infamous 1992 gaffe/Loretta Lynn song, Stand By Her Man.

I wonder if history will remember Hillary Clinton as the last capital-f Feminist. Just as Clyburn, MLK and Jackson took the worst of the African-American civil rights movement to make way for Obama's ascendency, maybe Clinton is taking the last of the women's rights movement to pave the way for, I don't know, Amy Klobuchar. (Granholm is Canadian, and Palin is Palin). That would be unfortunate, because I think the United States would benefit from the moderation, prudence and wisdom of a President Hillary Clinton. But that's the way things go in politics. Moments sometimes pass the prime movers by. Anyway, take a look:

Julie and Julia...

... was good, and now I'm starving.

• Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep are such an amazing combo. I loved them in DWP (along with everything else in that movie, except for the scenes with Andy's lame friends) and they are so great in this movie. Awesome chemistry.
  

• I'm a huge Amy Adams fan, but she wasn't able to make me care about her character in this movie. Whiny neurotic brats aren't really my thing (maybe b/c it takes one to know one). But I loved how she was a blogger.
  

• I also loved Chris Messina. The last I saw of him, he was Claire's dorky boyfriend in Six Feet Under. He has a ton of charisma and is just so likable. Weirdly enough, my former roommate's name was also Chris Messina, and when I googled the actor when I saw him in Six Feet Under, I discovered that the roommate is a minor celebrity in some tech blog/e-zine circles. He had tons of hits. So, good for him! Do people still say ezine?
  

• I wish that I had known Julia Child a bit better before going into the movie. Meryl Streep could do anything. Literally. If there were a movie where she was cast as, I don't know, the Pope, she would pull it off and I would believe. I'm sure she was spot-on with Julia Child's accent, but I didn't know it enough to commentate. I did YouTube her before going to the movie tonight, but that just gave me a passing familiarity.
  

• The movie was wrapped tight in a nice little concept, but I wish Meryl Streep would have had more screen time. The concept would have suffered if she had an outsized role, but I feel like it would have been a net benefit.

• BF thinks that Meryl Streep devours young actresses with whom she is cast. Amy Adams in JJ, Anne Hathaway in DWP, Amy Adams in Doubt... I think that's dead on. And I just now realized that this movie was kind of like a three year reunion tour for Meryl Streep, with Stanley Tucci in DWP from 2006 and with Amy Adams in Doubt from 2008. That's kind of cool.

That's all.

A Thousand Words

I couldn't have said it better myself. Well, I might take off the question mark. And I don't want to hear excuses about how difficult it's been for the president to get his footing in this horrible climate. That's no excuse for actively working to ensure that LGBT people remain second class citizens.

Where it All Started

I'm going to be in Pittsburgh this weekend from Friday to Sunday (very brief... too brief) and I'm really insanely excited about it. The city is a symbol of so much to me. It's my first weekend stay since I moved in 2005 for law school.

Before I moved to Pittsburgh, I was floundering. I was gay and out (very unusual in my tiny hometown--which meant very few gay friends, which contributed to a feeling of isolation); working at a job that I was pretty good at, but where I was probably in over my head; not in school; living with my mom in her one bedroom apartment. Going nowhere.

I met a guy at a Memorial Day picnic in Pittsburgh when I was 21, and within six weeks, I had quit my job at home, got a job at an Applebee's in Pittsburgh, packed up my life in Clarion, and moved. Everything that I possessed fit in my car. One trip. I didn't have a bed for weeks. But I started to be proactive and stop taking things as they came. I learned to accept the young adult angst. And I started to build my life.

It was tough learning who I was. It still is, and I'm nowhere near finished. But Pittsburgh is where I learned how to learn.

Heading back now, after four years (save for a brief stopover last December) is really an unusual feeling. I don't know what it will feel like to walk Pitt's campus, and to see the skyline in the evening. It will be oddly emotional. Actually, I'm not sure if it would be more odd to be emotional or to not be emotional. But one thing's for sure: I wouldn't be who I was without Pittsburgh... and I can't wait to be back where this crazy journey started.

The Wit and Wisdom of BF

JZ: It's funny that the president is sort of like the last god on earth right? Like, no one cares about the pope.

NYer, WTF?

I like to think of myself as a transplanted cosmopolitan sort, always ready to smirk at some martini wit. Among said wittiness are the cartoons from the New Yorker. I usually think I get these cartoons, I smile just a skosh, maybe mutter a "heh," and move on.

But I am completely at a loss with this cartoon. (I tried forever to link it, but I gave up.)

Can anyone tell me what's so funny about this? Seriously? Am I that dense? Is this high-brow wit? Or is it just so completely out there that the editors thought they would throw it in and see what people make of it? I'm fully prepared to be humbled, so tell tell tell.

Oh, and I was reading this article by Jeffrey Rosen about Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings when I stumbled across the cartoon. Interesting and worth a read. The modern Supreme Court confirmation process post-Bork won't ever be worth anything.

Sotomayor Day 3

Same as Day 2. Same questions, same answers, same same same.

Just confirm her and get this over with. I'm bored.

(I'll of course be listening to every minute of today's testimony, just like yesterday and the day before and the day before).

Sotomayor Day 2

Today was Sotomayor's first day of answering questions from the Judiciary Committee, and I think she came off very well. She was articulate, thorough, relatively forthcoming and obviously intelligent (if pretty nervous).

I think, though, that she didn't answer the Ricci questions sufficiently. Sotomayor was on a panel of three judges that heard the Ricci appeal, which involved a question of "reverse discrimination." Instead of writing a detailed opinion in the case, the Sotomayor panel simply released a three-paragraph unsigned opinion affirming the lower court. Sotomayor subsequently voted to deny rehearing the case in banc (by the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals). The vote to rehear failed by one vote. If Sotomayor had changed her vote, the whole Second Circuit would have heard the case and, presumably, released a full opinion on the merits.

I don't think she explained (1.) the summary opinion affirming the lower court; or (2.) voting to deny rehearing. The case was important, reaching questions of first impression on the Second Circuit. Aside from the fact that she should have written an opinion, or else voted to send the case to the full circuit, she didn't really explain why she didn't take either step. She said that Second Circuit precedent compelled her decision, but that doesn't adequately explain why there actually was no Second Circuit decision either by the three-judge panel or the full circuit. I feel like there should have been.

I also hated how Lindsey Graham turned into an undergraduate speechwriting professor in his own mind. Sotomayor doesn't need to be told how to give a speech, which wasn't as bad as everyone is trying to make it seem (wise Latina), nor does she need to be lectured to by a pompous senator about what's appropriate for a judge to speak about. But I guess that's how these confirmation hearings go.

Anyway, I really enjoyed listening to her give substantive responses. She clearly knows what she's talking about, and I think she would be a fantastic addition to the Court. She strikes me as a humble person who would bring a much-needed diversity of background to the Court. And yes, that's a good thing.

Sotomayor Day 1

I streamed much of the first day of the Sotomayor hearings in my office today. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wins the award for most realistic Republican on the Judiciary Committee. He told Sotomayor that her confirmation was essentially a given as long as she didn't choke, and he hinted that because he thought presidents deserve deference regarding their judicial picks, he might be a Yes vote. (I agree with him. If I were in the Senate, I would have voted at least for Roberts, and maybe for Alito.)

Other Republicans spent the afternoon telling Sotomayor how she is a bigot and a racist and that her biases might be too much to overlook when deciding how to cast their vote--this in front of her mother who worked two jobs to put food on the table.

But here's the thing. The Democrats have 58 active senators right now, excluding Byrd and Kennedy. That is enough to secure confirmation. I understood the reasoning behind the bluster about opposing her nomination in the build up to today's hearing: to raise money for conservative interest groups (even at the expense of sacrificing some Hispanic support for the GOP). But I don't see why they persist now that the moment is at hand. She's in, guys. Bullying her today in front of the cameras and in front of her family was incredibly self-defeating, and it made her look even more sympathetic than she already did.

A Numbered List About Bruno

Ok. Bruno. Shallower observations first.

1. As a lot of people have noted, Bruno's premise is much like Borat. Crazy foreigner infiltrates middle America and exposes their latent (or blatant) prejudices. Sacha Baron Cohen is of course a fantastic character actor, and I'm sorry to anyone who talks to me on a regular basis, but I'll be saying things like"Schting" and "und" for a very long while.

2. SBC is also pretty hot in this movie. He definitely has been hitting the gym, and he has a fabulous gay coif--although the highlight patterns leaves something to be desired. It's amazing that this is the same guy who played Borat. It's a complete transformation (which was probably necessary since Borat was such a hit).

3. A lot of this film seemed staged. I know the same was true in Borat, but there were a few times when you could totally tell everyone was in on it. I really don't like faux-candid things.

Alright.

4. I have a feeling that SBC is going to need to do something else if he's going to make another movie. Borat was hilarious, but Bruno borrowed a lot of set-ups and plot devices from it. I still laughed, but not quite as hard (more on this later). A third movie doing essentially the same thing would be too much. It's like that Simpsons episode when Bart was the "I didn't do it" kid. Hilarious for a while, and then one day Krusty slams the door in his face. If there's a next time, I'm Krusty.

5. This movie made me cringe a lot more than I thought I would, and not necessarily in a good way. I think some cringe movies can be fantastic. (Did anyone see The Aristocrats? Jesus.) But here, a lot of the time the cringe-inducing set up was just uncomfortable for everyone. Without spoiling too much, the hunting scene made me want to die. I wanted to disappear into my chair. I get that SBC likes to get bigoted people to reveal their bigotry in an organic way, but I actually felt sympathy for some of these guys. I think some people have the potential to be hostile to gay people if the right buttons are pushed, but would otherwise have a live-and-let-live philosophy. That was sort of my sense with a lot of these set ups: guys who weren't proactively homophobic, but who got to the point where their little homophobic ember was fanned too much. That isn't to excuse homophobia, but maybe to understand it a little better.

(Spoiler here if you haven't seen it)

6. And here's where I get really uncomfortable. Tied into the last point, at the end of the film there is a ridiculous wrestling scene where Bruno and his assistant start making out and PG-13ing each other in the ring in front of an obviously clueless redneck audience. People in the audience start yelling "fag" and throwing beer, food, and, at one point, a chair into the ring. By the end of the scene, Bruno and the assistant are covered in garbage and the people remaining in the audience seem like they're ready to lynch. People were banging on the cage, screaming epithets, trying to inflict harm.

Their reaction was vicious, and it was chilling, and it focused me on where gay people stand in 2009. We're making remarkable progress in a lot of areas (no thanks to our president). But when a group of people react the way they did to the sight of two gay guys making out, it really demonstrates how far we have to go to win hearts and minds, as the Honorable George W. Bush would say.

The typical response is to say that well, duh, no one expects to see simulated fellatio when they go to a wrestling match. I get that. But if it were anything else unexpected, I don't think there would have been such a violent overreaction. It struck me as cathartic, freed of the bounds of politically correct behavior and embracing their inner Glenn Beck. Those poor straight white male Christians have had it rough lately.

7. So, was Bruno good or bad for the gays? I don't know. I know the conventional wisdom for Borat was that it was generally a net positive for the Jewish community to expose anti-Semitism, in however sophisticated a way. I guess you can spin Bruno the same way for the LGBT community. Maybe Bruno is beneficial in showing the kinds of ridiculous provocations that get the people most likely to exhibit anti-gay violence, to actually exhibit anti-gay violence. On the other hand, maybe inflaming anti-gay passions--even among the few people not in on the joke--just to make Sacha Baron Cohen a fast few million isn't necessarily the most responsible thing to do in this political climate.

Or maybe Bruno is just a silly movie not worth all of these pixels. But it's definitely worth seeing--if for no other reason than to be able to talk about it around the water cooler. Good movies have been in short supply this summer.

8. Speaking of film this year, I saw a preview for an alien sci-fi movie called District 9, and I'm totally going to see it. The website is amazing too. Check it out. (Don't even get me started on alien movies. I'll die.)

My Favorite Christ

I absolutely LOVE this (via TBogg). I hope Sarah Palin never ever goes away.

Lots to say about her, but I'm skating out of work right now. More later, p'raps.

To the Citizens of Brookline, MA

I hereby declare a moratorium on people standing around with clipboards in the middle of Coolidge Corner sidewalks begging me to take just a minute to declare my support for safe drinking water, "the environment," the DNC, LaRouche, pandas, "the children," or anything else that's just an excuse to put me on your lame mailing list.

And if you team up to force me to walk through a gauntlet of two or more clipboard-wielding ideologues--casting away all plausibility of my pretending not to see you--the penalty shall be summary execution.

This moratorium goes into effect immediately.

Thank you.

Confessions: Guilty Pleasures

There are few things I love more than to read comment sections on right wing blogs and observe all the idiotic "commentary" coupled with spelling and/or grammatical errors. It's just so perfect.

See, e.g., www.hotair.com.

Years Ago

Amazing how dated the West Wing is from 2001. The computers are old, the cell phones are enormous, and one line of dialogue centered on the "historically low unemployment rate."

If I could turn back time...

Seriously?

I don't like this.

In a surprise announcement the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Wednesday that it would double the number of nominees for the best-picture Academy Award to 10 from 5, returning to a practice it used more than a half-century ago when the number of films released was larger.

There is so much crap out there as it is, and now we have to sit through ten best picture nominees? The article invokes The Dark Knight, and how it was shut out from the category, but if all we're trying to do is recognize blockbusters, can't we do a montage or something? Best Picture? Come on.

And I'm still bitter about Crash winning over Brokeback in 2007. That hugging-the-shirt scene.... omg.

What LGBT Cowardice?

The president just concluded a one-hour news conference today, and not one member of the press corps felt it necessary to ask if Obama stood behind the DOMA brief, or whether he's selling out members of the LGBT community for supposed political benefit.

I know Iran, the economy and health care are very important. But there is only so much news you're going to get out of this guy. You need to mix it up a little bit. Asking questions about perceived contradictions in his response to Iran doesn't make much news, even if it might up your standing within the Beltway.

Ugh.

Repeal DADT, Now With Statistical Proof!

If the president isn't swayed by entreaties to such notions as equal protection under the law, or to "separate is not equal" lines of thinking, maybe his interest would be piqued by this (via Andrew Sullivan):

Gay and lesbian study participants who were asked to conceal their sexual orientation performed 20% worse on spatial reasoning tests and 50% worse on physical endurance tests as compared to those who were not given this instruction. The findings have clear implications for the battlefield. Gays and lesbians — even those who follow the policy — are prevented from performing optimally, which may affect the readiness of military units.

This is kind of obvious. If you have to expend energy or concentration concealing who you are (no easy feat), there is less energy/concentration available to you to do your job (or whatever). When it comes to fighting wars, you would think the military would want to remove as many mental barriers as possible.

Gay Marriage, Briefly

Contrary to my general disillusionment with elected leaders in the last month or so when it comes to gay rights, I'm pretty excited to hear that NY Gov. Patterson is going to push New York's gay marriage bill to a vote before the Senate breaks this summer, even if the prospect of enactment is remote.

And yes, I know that 2009 is going to emerge as one of the most important watershed years in the history of gay rights, regardless of what happens in the next six months. That doesn't make it any easier to take when the president of the United States refuses to even acknowledge those important victories, and it doesn't make it okay to avoid the question when political realities might make pushing the legislation less than ideal.

So, basically, kudos to Gov. Patterson.

Oh, and Senator Dodd (D-CT) is now in favor of gay marriage:

While I’ve long been for extending every benefit of marriage to same-sex couples, I have in the past drawn a distinction between a marriage-like status (“civil unions”) and full marriage rights.

The reason was simple: I was raised to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And as many other Americans have realized as they’ve struggled to reconcile the principle of fairness with the lessons they learned early in life, that’s not an easy thing to overcome.

But the fact that I was raised a certain way just isn’t a good enough reason to stand in the way of fairness anymore.

Sweet. Kudos to him, too.

Flight Risk

I'm never flying again:

A Continental Airlines jetliner carrying 247 passengers landed in Newark shortly before noon on Thursday, after the flight’s captain died midflight.

Over It, Mr. President

I am infuriated with President Obama's cowardice and lack of leadership with respect to gay rights issues. This link isn't to Obama's official site for his plan for gay rights, but it may as well be.

I don't know what it will take to force the president and Congress to recognize that (1) gay people deserve as many (some might say "equal") protections under the law as any other person; (2) there is never a good time to advocate for the rights of an historically oppressed minority; and (3) there is actually majority support for several issues (but not yet gay marriage) that the LGBT community has been advocating for.

I have been content for the past few months to give Obama time to get his sea legs as president. There is a lot on his plate, blah blah blah. But enough is enough. We can't accept "maybe later," "wait till after the midterms," or "maybe at the end of the second term" as a date for possible full legal acceptance into civilized society. It's 2009 now. Seriously.

I hope everyone considers going to Washington in October -- the weekend of the 10th and 11th -- to march for the fundamental rights and liberties to which we are entitled, but denied. We need a huge, loud, fabulous turnout. We need to stand up for ourselves and for the respect and legal recognitions we are entitled to.

On a Lighter Note

The Times likes the iPhone 3G S.

BF will be getting one on Friday, so I'm withholding judgment, but I'm about 90% sure to keep the 3G. I'll probably wait for the 4th generation to upgrade (he says while checking his bank account online....).

Iran Elections

Iran is on the brink of revolution. Follow this link on Huffington Post: Blogging the Uprising.

It's amazing. I wish I could believe that if the situation were similar in the United States we would be doing the same thing, but I really doubt it. (The 2000 election is not analogous. Gore only wanted a recount of three counties in Florida, and even if he got his way, he still would have lost.)

A Serious Question

Why do batters take a 3-0 pitch almost every single time? They know the pitch is going right down the middle of the plate. If they can get to 3-0, they obviously have a good eye, so they can hold up if it's a crap pitch.

So, why just stand there? It's a waste of a strike. This Times article from 2007 describes the trend, but doesn't explain the strategy really well. It's not the end of the world to go 3-1, but why take it as a necessity?

Pet Peeve Alert

One of my biggest pet peeves is misusing the term "begging the question." To beg the question means to assume the thing you are trying to prove. To use Wikipedia's example, when arguing that the Bible is the word of God, a person would refer to what is written in the Bible as proof of the proposition that the Bible is divinely inspired.

Begging the question does not mean to "present" the question. I was reading this post on MyDD.com discussing the Lieberman-Graham amendment to the war supplemental that would forbid the dissemination of pictures of American torture. Charles Lemus writes: "this begs the question, what are they trying to hide?" No, it presents that question, or poses that question. The question was not "begged."

(I had a pedant for a philosophy professor during my undergrad years at Pitt. Sue me.)

And another thing: "whether or not X" makes my ears bleed. It should be "whether X or not," or "regardless of whether X".

"Whether or not" is redundant, and it drives me absolutely craaaaazy.

Ok, that's probably enough.

This is Not Funny

Daughter Breaks Moms Legs While Learning to Drive

Police said a 17-year-old girl who was practicing how to drive broke her
mother's legs after stepping on the gas pedal instead of the brake. Sgt. Thomas
Long told the Republican newspaper that the mother was sitting on a fence when
she was struck Saturday morning at a movie theater parking lot.

Sarah Palin Sez:

Today the things that some in Washington would do to take away our freedoms, it's absolutely astounding, and we would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president - cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin' off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state's rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies.

(via Huffington Post)

Omg I cannot WAIT for her to start running for prez in 2011. I'll have to start sharpening up the Alaskan accent. Kevin can help me.

Another Day

Okay, I'm twelve years late to the whole Rent thing. The first time I saw it I was at a movie theater watching the recording of the last show on Broadway last September. I know. Bad gay.

I've never considered myself really into theater, but everything that I see I love. So I guess I need to reevaluate what I think about that.

Anyhoo, Mimi's voice is fantastic. And she is gorgeous beyond words.

Gay 2.0: An Introduction

I alluded to this at the end of the last post, but I'm endlessly fascinated by the concept of Gay 2.0. (Bear with me as I over-generalize to an absurd degree, because I do have a point and I can't qualify every assertion.)

Gay culture is changing. Some would say gay culture is deteriorating. LGBT people are now accepted by more elements of society than ever before. The trends are unmistakable: gay marriage will become the law of the land for most people, if not all, within the next ten to twenty years. Younger LGBT are consequently becoming complacent in the movement for equal rights. Younger LGBT are also less inclined to seek out a specifically "gay" restaurant, bar, clothing store, movie, group of friends, etc. As LGBT people are more accepted by elements of non-gay society (for lack of a better term), generally speaking, the younger generations don't feel the need to focus on their sexual orientation in order to establish an independent adult identity.

This is--benefits minus costs--unquestionably a good thing. So much of the gay culture of the older generations (call it Gay 1.0) is built on a foundation of fear, persecution, ostracization, and prejudice. That is the society in which 1.0 culture developed. But as society changes, so too does gay culture change. However happy members of the LGBT community are with the massive progress the movement has made recently, that happiness has to be tempered by recognizing that our victories may inevitably lead to the end of "gay culture."

The ease with which a person accepts this change defines the "iteration" of that person's culture. If you are completely at ease with the declination of gay culture as such--because you don't think gay culture in and of itself is a necessary thing--you embody a Gay 2.0 culture. On the other hand, if you perceive that the victories are bittersweet, knowing that one more step ahead toward equality under the law is also one more undermining of the very necessity for gay culture--which you think is a bad thing--your mindset is representative of Gay 1.0.

Obviously, as a general matter the older gay generation tends to be 1.0, and the younger gay generation tends to be 2.0. I came out in 1998 at age 18. I would have to say that I categorize myself more 1.0 than 2.0, but I think I'm on the knife's edge of the categorizations. Most older LGBT people I know I would categorize as 1.0, whereas most of the younger LGBT I know I would say are 2.0. That isn't to say a 29 year old today is the fulcrum of the distinction; the response of friends and families as well as the environment in which a person grows up makes an enormous amount of difference. But that, anecdotally, is where I see a gray line.

I am absolutely not saying that I think this issue is black and white. To use my characterization, there are Gay 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 people, etc., on down the line. In the future I would like to explore specific areas where this cultural change will likely make a difference. But the undisputed truth is this: gay culture as it is formerly understood is being diminished by the very successes for which the entire culture was established. Where is it going to go next--if anywhere?

Three Things

1. Can something be done about David Ortiz? Like, is there some reason we need to keep him in the line up? Send him to AAA for awhile and stick someone who can hit in there. This is getting to be ridiculous. I also have issues with Nick Green at shortstop. Okay, so he's a pretty decent hitter with runners on base, and of course he's adorable, but he makes fielding and/or baserunning errors every time I watch him play. Maybe it's really my fault: bad luck charm. Hopefully Jed Lowrie will be back soon. He looks like my former roommate's former boyfriend.

2. I saw the craziest movie last night, Happy-Go-Lucky. First of all, I love British movies, especially featuring cockney accents. You could barely understand what these people were saying but it was still hilarious. I actually tried to put subtitles on so I could follow better, but I couldn't figure out how to on my fabulous new tv.

The movie itself was about a woman who is... happy go lucky. I'm sure there is more to it, and I could come up with some random take on the movie, but (a) I don't feel like thinking that hard; and (b) I fell asleep for twenty minutes in the middle of it, so I probably missed some crucial plot twist. Sally Hawkins plays the lead though, and she was so great. Actually, I just clicked over to the movie's website to find some linky material and I see she got the Golden Globe for her role last year. Good for her. She probably deserved it, but I don't remember who she was up against.

3. I'm sitting here right now with Golden Girls on in the background, and it's funny to realize that GG is an older generation's Sex and the City. Four fabulous women talking about their single sex lives, always getting in each others' business, riffing off of each others' personalities. I mean, that description could apply to all kinds of sitcoms, but it was one of those shows that really resonated with the gays. Bea Arthur of course made Golden Girls. I personally loved Cynthia Nixon in SATC. Strong female roles of course. Also, it turns out that GG is sometimes the current generation's SATC. It will live on in infamy.

There could be a Gay 1.0 v. Gay 2.0 point to be made there, and maybe someday I will.

Ugh.

Presenting a verbatim conversation between me and my boyfriend Tuesday night:

JZ: I think I’m going to go by James instead of Jimmy from now on.
CW: Why? There’s nothing wrong with Jimmy. It’s cute.
JZ: CEO’s aren’t named Jimmy. It’s a kid’s name. [NB: He wants to be a CEO of SOMETHING sometime.]
CW: What about Jimmy Carter? He was president.
JZ: Yeah but only one term.

I Love it

The opening lines of this article made me laugh out loud:

The ladies in the card room are playing bridge, and at their age the game is no hobby. It is a way of life, a daily comfort and challenge, the last communal campfire before all goes dark. “We play for blood,” says Ruth Cummins, 92, before taking a sip of Red Bull at a recent game.

No word yet on whether she found a bridge app for her iPhone.

Yes, I am a True New Englander

Based on these maps (linked by The Daily Dish via The Map Scroll):








Darker areas show higher correlation to the characteristic.

Accordingly, I am not extroverted, I am neurotic, I am not particularly agreeable, I might buck the trend regarding conscientiousness (I think I am --who doesn't --although certain people may take exception to that assertion) and I'm relatively open to experience. So I pretty much fit the bill.

And these maps also demonstrate how stereotypes are very often grounded in a bit of reality. Everyone thinks that New Englanders are stand-offish, neurotic and selfish. It looks like, generally speaking, they're kind of right.

Knowing v. Not Knowing

Interesting article via the NYT discussing that the possibility of something bad happening creates more anxiety than actually knowing something bad will happen.

Por ejemplo:

Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn’t know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid — they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster — than subjects who knew for sure that they’d receive an intense shock.

Why are humans so weird?

Waxing Rhapsodic

about American Idol is Jacob from Television Without Pity:

Think about this: more than the Superbowl, more than any Presidential address, more than anything Neilsen can currently monitor: whenever this show comes on, we watch it together. Singly or in huge parties, this show is the biggest thing that happens, every episode, all week, all year. Queers and queer families, moms with daughters, families of all ridiculous building blocks, daddies with secret singer hearts and quiet tears down the cheek. We gather, here at TWoP or in our homes, live or on DVR or by ahem means, and we do this thing. This pointless, silly, wonderful thing: we do it together.

I love the recaps on this site, esp. with American Idol and, previously, with the Apprentice. So funny and sometimes really insightful.

And I still maintain my neutrality about the result. Kris = cute and marketable. Adam = flamboyant superboy with a limitless career ahead of him. A pretty good mix if you ask me.

Shelly O

She is amazing. The Time article is really interesting too.

SCOTUS Wager

In re Obama's Supreme Court pick:

I started off thinking it would be Kagan.

Then I thought it would be Sotomayor.

Now I think it's gonna be Wood.

My final answer: Ten bucks on Wood. Any takers?

Obama is a Good Politician

Ergo, he is not a brave politician.

Thus far, I have been mostly happy with President Obama's administration. He has to be happy with his progress as well. He appears to have a long term strategy to put his agenda through Congress. He has yet to suffer a major legislative defeat. (Congress's refusal to appropriate funds to close Guantanamo was, as Ann Althouse has repeatedly argued, probably engineered by the administration as a way out of a hastily issued order). His stimulus bill passed early this year, and health care reform will come up for a vote by this fall. Early indications are that Republicans will not engage in a death match over Obama's soon-to-be-announced Supreme Court nominee.

So, Obama has those things going for him.

Where I have problems with Obama is that he is afraid to lead through bold and aggressive action. To take just one example in the national security arena, the reason the Democrats in Congress had to give him cover on backing out of the deadline to close Guantanamo Bay is because the right is kicking and screaming about having terrorists on American soil. The right argues that terrorists shouldn't be in United States prisons--exactly why this is a problem I don't quite understand--and some on the left are beginning to make the same point. Why Obama chooses not to counter the shrieking is beyond me. The right wing in this country has been decisively rejected in the past two elections, including in 2008 when they tried to portray Obama as a terrorist sympathizer. Obama, you will recall, won 365 electoral votes in that election. But he apparently still fears that portrayal. Thus, Guantanamo Bay will stay open until he can find a way to dial down the rhetoric. (Hint: The rhetoric isn't going anywhere).

Glenn Greenwald blogs extensively regarding Obama's Bush-era national security policies, much much more so than I feel like getting into right now. Head on over and start scrolling. It's really rather depressing.

For me, though, the biggest problem I have with Obama's political "skill" is his unwillingness to stand up for the rights of gay and lesbian Americans. Obama refuses to push to overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and he refuses to comment on the gay marriage revolution 2009 is turning out to be.

You might have heard that Obama's defense department recently fired Dan Choi, an Arab linguist, because he publicly revealed his sexual orientation. Obama, rather than making it a point to get Congress to repeal the legislation -- or, gasp, issue an executive order effectively doing the same thing -- has decided to wait until some point in the unforeseeable future to make his move (if, indeed, he actually will be making a move). Marc Ambinder describes the likely course of action:

Obama will probably convene a commission -- not sure yet whether it'll be a blue ribbon dealy or a smaller task force -- that will, under the guise of studying the "problem," be tasked with coming up with ways to meaningfully and safely integrate open homosexuality with military service. No mistake here: the administration will not give this commission the option to decide that being gay is not compatible with service. But the idea is to build a consensus through all available means -- legally, through the courts, in public, through a concerted but non-hectoring public relations effort, in the military, by conveying the sense that Obama takes the objections to his view seriously -- and then, when such a consensus has arisen, work with Congress to change the policy.

This is a cowardly way to advocate for minority rights. This fact is particularly true when polls show that overturning the ban on gay and lesbians in the armed services isn't particularly controversial anymore. 56% of the country favor an outright repeal of the ban, and 7% are unsure.

Similarly, Obama refuses to acknowledge gay marriage victories this year in Iowa, Maine, Vermont and -- soon -- New Hampshire, let alone push for a greater acceptance of gay marriage. This to me is a less annoying political position to take since majorities still regularly poll in opposition to gay marriage (although the number of those in favor of gay marriage has soared in recent years, and has risen dramatically in 2009 alone).

But less annoying does not mean not annoying. Presidents are elected to lead. I understand that Obama has more than enough on his plate at this point in his administration. As he lectured John McCain during the presidential campaign, though, presidents must be able to do more than one thing at one time. If President Obama chose to come out in favor of gay marriage now, when he has enhanced political capital and maintains solid approval ratings (65% in today's Gallup tracking poll), he could put his imprimatur on the defining civil rights struggle of the 21st century. Obama could link his name to the success of the gay rights movement the way Martin Luther King or Lyndon Johnson are linked to the success of the African-American civil rights movement in the 1960's. In short, this is a history-making opportunity that Obama refuses to embrace.

I understand that Obama wishes to conserve his political capital for health care and the myriad other programs that he wishes to institute in this country. I think he also overestimates the potential negative impact his support for full equality would have. That said, the potential downside of taking action is probably higher than the potential downside of not taking action. As the title of this post indicates, Obama's unwillingness to take that extra step, to show the country that one can simultaneously respect religious autonomy yet still be an advocate for all people to be treated equally under the law, is the (marginally) safer choice. Refusing to take action probably makes him a good politician. But it sure doesn't make him brave.

Gay Prom

So last night, after a significant amount of cajoling by my roommate, I volunteered to chaperone BAGLY's gay youth prom. Although there is a lot to say about the experience, the thing that really stuck with me was how mainstream gay kids are now. There were what people would call stereotypical gay kids, but the gay community ran the panoply: skaters, jocks, normal little girl lesbians, etc.

It was a really remarkable demonstration of how "gay" seems to be losing much of its idiosyncracy in the younger generation.

G Weds

Gay marriage throughout New England is looking like a definite possibility by 2012. We have VT, MA, CT and ME so far. NH is coming up (possibly tomorrow). RI later on. I like it.

Even though I wouldn't EVER do it, as I told the New York Times :)

86 Specter

If Arlen Specter, the new Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, is still rooting for Norm Coleman to win the Minnesota senate recount over Al Franken, why exactly should Democrats be happy he's in the Democratic caucus? I definitely loved watching the Republicans flip their collective lid last week, but this isn't acceptable. Especially considering the way he framed it: he wants the courts to "do justice" and seat the loser of the election.

Someone needs to primary his ace.

Secular Conservatives?

I'm sure there are more of these types of people out in the woodwork somewhere, but it's nice to finally see conservatives articulate their views without reference to what they think god would have wanted. The Secular Right blog represents the kind of approach that conservatives need to take if they ever hope to win back a governing coalition.

I could conceivably be receptive to a certain kind of conservative message, one that emphasized more responsible spending (in a long term sense, which means it's OKAY to spend big now on things like universal health care in order to reap long term benefits - and savings) and had a libertarian philosophy w/r/t tired culture war issues. But it seems like the time such a message could even substantially participate in the discussion, let alone predominate it, is very far off. That's why (a) the 2012 Republican primary is going to be worth every tub of popcorn I can get my hands on, and (b) I will be a Democrat for at least the short-to-medium term future.

More on this later.

Seriously

I'm trying to think of some act of journalism that could possibly be more boring than this one, but I simply can't.

With the Times about thisclose to going bankrupt I'm glad this sort of thing warrants the pixels.

Maybe next an analysis of comma type-face fads?

Speaking of the Times and bankruptcy, I really hope the Times Co. doesn't shut down the Boston Globe. Granted, I don't actually READ the Boston Globe all that often (or ever), but it feels like too much of an institution. And I love looking at the headlines whenever a Boston sports team wins a playoff series or something. This city is intense about their sports . . . like Pittsburgh is with their STEELERS. But I digress. Save the Globe.

An Internet Revolution

What could this mean for Google's hegemony?

Rachel Getting Married -- in Real Time

A few random things about Rachel Getting Married, which my bf insisted we watch last night (or was I the insister? I don't remember and it couldn't possibly matter anyway):

1. I am a big fan of film-- particularly acting and writing. I love a great screenplay and a revolutionary acting performance. And I had heard such good things about Anne Hathaway's performance. After tolerating her in Devil Wears Prada (the movie of the new millennium) I was excited to see her in something more challenging and less cutesy.

2. Call me a snob, but when Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics gives a movie a 94% rating, I'm going to expect it to be good.

3. I did, in fact, expect RGM to be good.

Now.

4. The film started off well enough. Anne Hathaway is a recovering drug addict-slash-other things on her way home from rehab to go to her yuppie sister's wedding. There was plot point about a clandestine lesbian relationship that could rear its head at some point (although I would later find that it went nowhere). And there was a "car ride home" scene with that hand held camera/gritty realism thing that I like so much. So far so good.

5. But this movie drug on forever. Scenes stretched to an interminable length. I didn't need to see forty minutes of lame speeches at the rehearsal dinner leading up to the sublimely uncomfortable speech that Hathaway gives. (It's really fantastic). This aspect of RGM reminded me of the film Day Night Day Night, which was about a girl who was going to be a suicide bomber in NYC. Every scene stretched out forever, and while it drove me crazy -- all tension, no release -- at least it made sense. The girl was going to kill herself and dozens of people in a flash of fire. Everything she did that day was "important." Not so with RGM. The film could have been thirty minutes shorter, or we could have added a lot of character development, like with the mother. (Hello?)

6. Anne Hathaway really is an amazing actress. I thought she was great in Brokeback, so-so in Prada, and I refuse to sit through the entirety of the Princess Diaries. I'm sure there are other things but I dont know them. But this is far and away her best performance that I've seen. She's got that intensely smart/99% crazy vibe that's really compelling to watch. And let me cite the rehearsal dinner speech again, as well as her support group confession. Wow.

7. There is a lot to say for RGM, such as how natural it seemed, definitely a testament to the great ensemble cast. But honestly, I was mostly bored. There is some good stuff in here, but you have to work too hard to find it.

8. I want a burrito.

Just Because

It's probably been awhile:

Blog 2.0

I blogged a year ago at onfurtherreview.blogspot.com, but the bar exam sucked all the life out of it :(

Here's to a new cyber baby!

Questions: "Swine" Flu

1. Can we get a little perspective re: this new swine flu? The regular flu kills 36,000 people per year, and I don't see the Texas school system being shut down over that. Nothing drives me crazier than hype.

2. If it were called H1N1 flu from the start, would there be such a ridiculous uproar? Or do we associate the word "pig" with "dirty" in such a way that anything associated with pigs makes us extra queasy?

3. As ridiculously over the top as the response has been, could it be a good thing? If there ever is a new plague that actually deserves attention, maybe going through the motions like we have been -- including, e.g., President Obama devoting his weekly address to it -- will better prepare us to deal when there is something actually to deal with.


If I were a superstitious person, I would say that this post would ensure that I will have H1N1 by tomorrow afternoon. And you know what? Even if I did, I would get over it. Go American health care system!