To the Editor

To The Editor-

I was disappointed to see the haste with which Gov. Schwarzenegger announced that he would veto legislation to make marriage in California gender neutral, but I was more appalled by his reasoning.

The governor would like us to believe that he is exercising his veto out of some heroic deference to the will of the people, as voiced in a ballot initiative in 2000. While the initiative process is an important part of California politics, at our core we remain a representative democracy. Since 2000, we have seen successful legal challenges to gender specific marriage laws in other states, and have even seen homosexual marriages here in San Francisco. It is folly to assume that people in California may not have changed their views in that time.

Every senator or assemblyperson who voted for AB 849 has faced election at least once since 2000. These are our leaders, and they must be allowed to lead. To veto this legislation is Gov. Schwarzenegger’s prerogative, but we deserve a debate, or a least a reason – not just a reflexive and politically attractive stance.

Joel

-- This is the text of a Letter to the Editor I wrote after Gov. Schwarzenegger promised to veto the legislation making marriage in CA gender neutral. I sent it to my Dad for editing (Thanks, Pop!), but by the next day I think The Chronicle had moved on to another topic. So I thought I'd publish it here. I have a lot of other arguments as to why his is a bogus decision, but I just scrolled my blog, and DAMN am I verbose.

Random Bits of Happiness

Yesterday turned out to be a great day for a number of random reasons, which may or may not have been related. So I thought I'd share. I'll try to distill some wisdom at the end -- if you're in a hurry, just scroll down.

I got up late and did my laundry, after which I wanted to get my hair cut. I had tried to do it over the weekend, but the barbershops in The Stro told me they were booked or weren't taking any more walk-ins. I find this odd for a barbershop, but they're admittedly a different breed($22?!?). So I went over to Geary Street in The Rich (near where I used to live) and strolled down the street, passing the barbershops, and guessing how long the wait would be. I ended up a shop to which I had never been. The jury may be out on the stylishness of the cut, but he did what I asked (I ended up doing the "like that guy" thing). More importantly, he finished up by razor shaving the neck and sideburns and using the massager on my neck and shoulders. I love that, and hadn't experienced it in a while. And all for 1/2 the price of what I pay in The Stro.

Tuesday is pool league night, and we were playing at The Mix. Post massage, I went to the match relaxed, and won two of the three games I played. As I'd never actually won a league game, I was stoked. Also, the boys seemed to like the 'do, and my teammate Scottie brought me some new shaving gels/lotions to try. Gotta lose the bumps.

In the midst of the match, the closed captioning showed that the California Assembly had passed a bill (already passed by the Senate) making marriage in California gender neutral. Thank you Mark Leno. No small news, especially in the Castro. One of the members of the other team bought a round of drinks for the bar. I find that to be an incredibly generous gesture, especially since you don't know how much you're in for until afterwards.

After the match, I shot a friendly game of pool with an off-duty bartender from The Mix. I'd spoken with him a number of times, but never at length. He was having a bit of a rough night, and we chatted. He invited me to go to Trannyshack at the Stud with him. I'd never been, so we hopped in a cab, where he warned me I might lose him because he would have to make the rounds. Having said that, he made sure it never happened. A wonderful guide, he introduced me to a ton of people, many of whom bought us drinks. The show itself was AWESOME. It was "Indie Rock" night, and I'm still laughing about the tranny in a women's business suit singing "I want a cookie". I even got a little closer to one of the performers than I had planned, at which time I found my friend and told him I was in a bit over my head. So I stuck with him until I left.

Wheel of morality turn, turn, turn. Tell us the lessons that we must learn. (Don't cha love the Animaniacs?)
--DO go to an old school barber every once in a while
--DO hang out at The Mix
--DON'T give up on gay marriages yet
--DO write to Ah-nold so he doesn't veto the bill
--DO buy a round of drinks sometime
--DON'T miss Trannyshack. If memory serves, Linda Lavin will be judging a "Come as your favorite Alice character" show next week.

FYI - The closest word to Animaniacs in my spell checker is "inhumanness".

Until next time...Kiss my grits!!!

On my soapbox (#1?)

One of the reasons I started a blog was to have an outlet for my thoughts on current events and politics. In a previous life, I was quite the little wonk with the Young Democrats of Maryland, but I got disillusioned with the people who were more interested in the title "public servant" than actually serving the public.

I had wanted to make a practical point related to the tragedy in New Orleans, but I held off because I liked the last blog better without pontification. Then, last night, I found out Chief Justice Rehnquist had died. So here we go with what will probably be the first of many blogs from my soapbox.

Who knows what danger lurks...?
Turns out the federal government often does. After 9/11, Nat. Sec. Advisor Condoleezza Rice expressed that we could not have predicted that terrorists would fly planes into buildings. In that case, it actually took a few weeks or months to get out the word that some scenarios had suggested just that possibility.

It has only taken days to hear about the "Hurricane Pam" scenario that predicted levee breaks in New Orleans from a storm Category 4 or greater. I'm not going to dwell on this -- we should have coughed up the cash to fix the levees. Not because it would be cheaper than this mess -- because it would have saved thousands of lives.

What is alarming to me now is that the Sacramento River area is apparently dependent on a somewhat similar system of levees. According to the folks on "This Week in Northern California", many of these levees weren't really engineered, they were just build up by farmers moving dirt. And most of them wouldn't stand up to a major earthquake. The disaster scenario goes something like this:

Earthquake --> levee breaks --> flooding like what we're seeing now. But it doesn't stop there...
...broken levees let the ocean come in --> salt water ruins the pumping system --> LA without water

Meanwhile, contractors are building thousands of new homes on and near the levees. Lets learn something from this horrible tragedy and build up our infrastructure. Perhaps we could keep the estate tax and spend some money to protect the living.

The Supremes
Chief Justice Rehnquist was not, shall we say, my favorite jurist. That said, he spent more years than most trying to make the country a better place, and worked right up until his death. Whether or not you agree with his vision, you have to respect that.

Now we're faced with two openings on The Court to be filled by President Bush's nominations. I'm holding out some hope for Judge Roberts, but I'm concerned about the next nominee. I hope he or she will be more moderate, even if means that Judge Roberts is elevated to Chief Justice (I don't even want to think about a Chief Justice Scalia right now). Unfortunately, the Roberts nomination seems to be sailing so well that it may embolden the president to nominate an even more conservative justice. That could mean good-bye Roe vs. Wade, hello anti-sodomy laws.

Here's my disaster scenario on this one, and you heard it here first (maybe) -- Chief Justice Janice Rogers Brown. I only know her record by report, but all signs point to arch-conservative. If I were a republican president trying to pack the court with conservatives, I'd nominate her. Not only can you make the "you just confirmed her" argument, but democrats would be hard pressed to filibuster the first African-American and woman nominated to be Chief Justice. The dramatic appeal of such a nomination has already been played out in an episode of The West Wing (from which I swiped the title for this part of the blog).

When the next election rolls around (even for Senate in 2006 -- they can hold up these nominations), lets remember that Supreme Court appointments are a big f---ing deal. For now, I'm just going to hope that Justice Rogers Brown is a liberal sleeper lying low until she gets the lifetime appointment. Meanwhile, I'm going to end this blog and have some fun while privacy is still considered a right.

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?

I've read a number of blog entries with personal stories of New Orleans. I was going to forego one, but I changed my mind. Any time you lose something (and let's hope for just a little while), sharing memories is an important part of healing and rebuilding. Before the ramblings, a couple of brief points:

1. I hope all the players in my stories and their friends and family are safe and healthy.

2. A shout out to the U.S. Coast Guard. I was just watching Washington Week, and it was noted that within the federal response that was "Not acceptable" (thanks for clearing that up Mr. President), the Coast Guard was singled out as one of the few groups that brought aid and services effectively and rapidly. Thanks, guys.

Let the rambling begin.
Of the various cliques in medical school, I was more or less adopted by the "Southern Boys", since I shared a fondness for cheap beer and college football. Mardi Gras fell nicely after one of our exams, so about 11 of us piled into cars (including my Neon) and drove to New Orleans. I spent my first couple of nights in Slidell, where we stayed with my friend's fiance's parents, who had never met most of us until that weekend. I still don't know how that conversation went:

"Dad, can I bring Chris and nine of his drunk friends here to crash over Mardi Gras?"
"Sure."

I haven't experienced that level of hospitality much outside of New Orleans. And it didn't stop there.

If you've been to Mardi Gras, you know that the most important things to have other than a place to flop at night are bathrooms and a place to stash drinks during the day. He not only provided a room for us to stink up at night, but handled our daytime spots as well. He owned the McDonald's on Canal St. where the parades turned, and he closed off the second floor of the McDonald's so we could watch the parades from the balcony. For some of the evening parades, he opened up his offices further up Canal St. And the burgers and fries were discounted.

After a couple of days of debauchery, most of the folks left and we closed down the Slidell operation. But my friend from Chalmette wanted to stay for Monday-Gras to hang with his girlfriend. So I spent that day with his girlfriend's family, who had a house in Chalmette, but still drove their motor home to the Hotel Intercontinental and got a suite there -- all of which they opened up to us. They kept us in food and drink, and her Mom, upon finding out I was in medical school, even tried to set me up:

Bryan: "Miss Bitty, this is Joel. He's in medical school with me." She was called Miss Bitty because she was "itty-bitty".
Miss Bitty: "So, you're going to be a doctor. Do you like red-heads? Jen has a little sister, ya know."

That night her husband took us all out for oysters at Felix's. For some odd reason gave me a Oscar Meyer wiener whistle that he picked up during the parades. He made me promise I'd keep it forever. I've still got it, and it always goes to the Big Easy with me.

On a later visit, for a wedding, we actually stayed with Bryan's family in Chalmette. Like the folks in Slidell, his grandmother let him troop a bunch of strangers into her house for the purpose of getting lit every night. Every morning, as we nursed our hangovers, Miss Janie would tap lightly on the door and say "Boys, breakfast is ready." She had a breakfast cycle that restarted every time we stayed -- I think it was pancakes and sausage day one, bacon and eggs day two, and day three -- biscuits and sausage gravy. Yum. Other that the taste, the best part was her husband, Mr. R.H. Mr. R.H. was a big old southern man -- gruff and un-PC. I asked him once what the R.H. stood for, and he said "R.H." Cooking and cleaning were women's work (I was laughed at for thinking I would iron my own shirt for the wedding). But Mr. R.H., with a slightly dirty white undershirt covering his belly and suspenders on top of that, dutifully stood buttering pancakes for us as they came off the griddle. I wish to God I could download the picture from my brain for you.

When we came back from the wedding, we couldn't decide what to do with one of our friends. He was passed out in a chair with a drink in his hand. We didn't want to leave him, but we wanted to go out. On cue, Miss Janie came out of her bedroom, gently lifted the scotch from his hand, and put an afghan over him. "You kids go have fun, I'll take care of Jeff, she said. Needless to say, we had a great night.

If you hoping for raunchier stories, I apologize. This tragedy is not about losing a city where you can get silly -- it's about people. The people I know from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are generous, caring, and fun. Anyone who thinks New Orleans won't be rebuilt is nuts. My money says Mardi Gras 2006 will go off on schedule, even if the "floats" really have to do so. And it won't be because of FEMA or the Red Cross or any of the other wonderful organizations that will help. It's just that the people won't have it any other way. Americans have some faults, but we are unmatched in our generosity and tenacity when faced with an immediate problem. Which is a large part of why I'm proud to be one and keep a flag hanging from my deck.

My best wishes to everyone looking for friends and family, or just trying to keep going.