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.