Guantanamo Geese

I love random conversations and connections, so I thought I'd share. I went to a Halloween party last night, where there was a discussion of President Bush's administration and its recent failures. In the midst of this, someone asked what the "grey stuff" on the cheese plate was.

It was, of course, pate. This led to everyone telling their pate virginity stories. The we came around to the recent laws that prevent the production of pate de foie gras in various places. In case you haven't heard, it is alleged that the pate is made by force feeding the birds a high fat diet to the point that the size of their livers alone makes them uncomfortable. (I say "alleged" because I have heard multiple sides to this argument, and I am neither a veterinarian nor a pate producer.) So, some states are banning pate, not because killing birds is wrong, but because force feeding them is. It was generally decided that this was similar to certain views on capital punishment, i.e., that killing a bird (person) is not cruel, but other things are.

Our resident Frenchman said this was all foolishness, and wanted some reassurance that there would be a place to make pate. Coming full circle to the current administration, someone dressed as Greg Brady suggested Guantanamo Bay - the one place President Bush (with the help of Attorney General Gonzales) has decided that the rules don't apply.

If this bored you, I'm sorry, but I love the image of a military base raising geese. Besides, the revenue might help the deficit.

SHOUT OUT -- to the guy at the North Pointe Safeway who gave me the wallet I had left sitting on the check writing platform. You're a decent guy.

PREDICTION -- despite what the pundits say, I've got a bad feeling that President Bush will try to get his administration back on track with a fight, not an olive branch. I'm again afraid he may nominate Judge Janice Rogers Brown to the Supreme Court (for the reasons, see my previous post). My number two guess is Orrin Hatch -- a solidly conservative Senator from a reliably Red State. For once I hope I'm wrong.

Where's the loyalty?!

I'm running out of nice things to say about President Bush. Not that I ever had a lot of them. After having my nose to the grindstone until 8:00 tonight, I checked cnn.com and found that the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court had been withdrawn. I'm not yet sure how I feel about this with regard to the next appointment to The Court, but it does make me lose even more respect for the President.

I don't believe for a second that Ms. Miers wasn't prompted to withdraw her nomination. Especially since I read an editorial predicting the withdrawal for the reason of conflicts with executive privilege, which was exactly the proffered excuse. I think, though, that the President and his (un-nominated) cronies saw the writing on the wall, couldn't engage much less lose another battle, and cut her loose.

What bothers me about this is that one of the few things I did respect about President Bush was his loyalty. It's an ort from my upbringing in the Mid-West. For example, I admit that there have been many times I have wanted to see Secretary Rumsfeld fired, but I did respect the President for keeping him. When you have the final say, you have the final responsibility -- you don't blame others for decisions that are ultimately yours. (This is something I struggle, mightily at times, to get across at work.)

So to see him leave his counsel and confidante hanging in the wind was sad. The last time an about face bothered me so much was in the 2000 election, when five previously federalist Supreme Court Justices decided to interfere with the manner in which Florida cast its electoral votes.

I wish Gore had won, but sometimes, I'd settle for a little Republican consistency.

Karma

"What goes around comes around,
What goes up must come down"
- Alicia Keys

The original is a great song, but it's even better with the sampling from Stevie Wonder's "Superstition". The first time I heard it, I was in a club with a friend. We heard the sampling, and he said, "This is awesome, but who the hell would Stevie Wonder let sample that." After we realized who it was, we agreed that she was the only person we could think of with the pedigree to sample Mr. Wonder.

But this ain't about that -- this is about my current guilty pleasure in politics. (My current guilty pleasure in TV is Prison Break, which I just finished watching). I spent my late teens and early twenties as a Clintonite -- rising to the almost meaningless posts of Corresponding Secretary of the Young Democrats and Parliamentarian for the College Democrats, both of Maryland. I even made his first inaugural ball. The man made some big mistakes, but I never thought he, or we, deserved to have his entire second term derailed by lies about fellatio. Hell, this happens in the Castro all the time (the lying, the fellatio, and the combination); however, the same people who hate the activist judiciary decided that if they couldn't win at the ballot box they'd take it to court.

So I am enjoying the vortex accosting President Bush's second term. I am DeLighted to see Rep. Tom DeLay go down DeDrain. I think the very style that brought him to power has made him enough enemies that even if his congressional career survives, his leadership role is over. Then there's the Jack Abramoff affair -- more of Delays chickens coming home to roost. My favorite is the Fitzgerald leak probe, which may indict Mr. Libby, Mr. Rove, and/or Vice-President Cheney. On the Sunday shows Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison actually suggested that a perjury charge (i.e., lying) would be a "technicality" and unworthy of an indictment. Seemed like a "high crime or misdemeanor" just 7 years ago. I don't know whether that's idiocy, irony, or hubris -- but it's sure as hell Karma.

Why is this all a guilty pleasure? Why can't a good Clintonite enjoy this? Unfortunately, the most important part of the Fitzgerald investigation involves the misinformation campaign that led to the war in Iraq. The erroneous or concocted intelligence. The manipulation of the "free press" to help (for which I blame both sides).

If President Clinton's lies hurt Ms. Lewinsky, she has my sympathies. The war in Iraq, though, has cost the lives of nearly 2,000 of America's finest -- and innumerable Iraqis. Like the bumper sticker says...When Clinton Lied, No One Died.

I would have ended there, but I want to give a second to Miss Rosa Parks. I think Karma sends her straight to heaven. Gay rights are civil rights, and she helped start it all. Thanks.

(For the record, I lifted the pics from various seemingly public websites. If any are still proprietary, and anyone's upset, I'm happy to take them down.)

Mesmerized

I'm a 32 year old white guy, but my favorite song right now is the "Radio Edit" (by the Freemasons, I believe), of "Mesmerized" by Faith Evans. It has got to be the happiest song I have heard in ages. I was scandalizing North Beach this evening, bopping to my walkman and singing along on my way home from the 'Stro. It always puts a huge smile on my face, even though it reminds me of someone I probably can't ever have (you know who you are -- and, for the record, I'd still go out with you).

Speaking of Mesmerizing people, I have to mention Katherine Hepburn (nice segue, huh?). In medical school, my friends and I decided to watch the AFI's Top 100 movies of all time. We started with "Yankee Doodle Dandee", and then it died. In an effort to remember that I enjoy things other than trying (desperately on occasion) to meet someone, I'm trying to watch them in order, with the exception of the very few (sadly) that I have already seen.

So #99 is "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?", and I loved it. Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and Sidney Poitier -- how could it be bad? As you may know, the story line is that an African-American man and a white woman decide to get married on the spur of the moment, and the families have to deal. There are a number of great speeches and discussions about racism and love, but my favorite moment (other than the phrase "pigmentation problem") was Katherine Hepburn firing her nosy, bigoted, gallery administrator. I'll recap the speech (full credit to the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner):

Hillary: "Well, I must admit I was intensely curious. I simply couldn't believe it. It's so unlike Joey to do anything so appallingly stupid"...

K.H. : "...Try not to worry about it. Now I have some instructions for you. I want you to go straight back to the gallery. Start your motor. When you get to the gallery, tell Jennifer that she will be looking after things temporarily. She's to give me a ring if there's anything she can't deal with herself.
Then go into the office, and make out a check, for cash, for the sum of $5,000. Then carefully, but carefully, Hillary, remove absolutely everything that might subsequently remind me that you had ever been there, including the yellow thing with the blue bulbs which you have such an affection for. Then take the check for $5,000 dollars, which I feel you deserve. and get, PERMANENTLY, lost.
It's not that I don't want to know you Hillary, although I don't. It's just that I'm afraid that we're not really the sort of people that you can afford to be associated with.
Don't speak, Hillary. Just go."

I can't do the speech justice in text, but DAMN. Despite the hanging prepositions, I hope I have that kind of class if I get to fire someone for being an asshole. Who da woman -- Katherine da woman. And she did win one of her record 4 Best Actress Oscars for this role.

Given the time frame, I finally gave up on the remainder of the previously mentioned political posts. Thanks to the Bush administration, though, there are new ones coming all the time. I'll try to get one or two out while they're still topical.

Mixed Blessings

Given my day, I couldn't resist this post, so some of the thoughts to which I have alluded are on a burner even further back.

When dealing with patients, I am often caught in the realm of what I consider "mixed blessings". A good example is the 23 year old with a really sore throat (I've been this person, too.) They end up HOPING that they have strep throat, because the other diagnosis is mono. I have a patient right now whose family is actually hoping that a recent test shows she has a terrible diagnosis -- because at least we'd know what she has. Not that we can promise to fix it.

My life tonight was a mixed blessing as well. I have a key ring with many keys, including keys for my home and office. As a good gay boy, I hate having a big key ring in my pocket, so I have often taken off the two keys I need to get into my house off the big ring. I put them in my pocket, and leave the rest behind. I have a lock on my door that closes when I shut it, plus a dead bolt that I rarely use.

When I was leaving work tonight, I realized that I did NOT have my house keys. I did what Mom would have said, and retraced my steps. Unfortunately, my keys were neither at Starbucks, in the hospital, or on the way home. So I went home, wondering how I would get into my building and apartment. I rang my neighbor's buzzer, but he didn't answer. At this point, I realized that I still had my key to the garage entrance, so I made it into my apartment door.

At this point, you have to realize that I was not always an upstanding kid. While I never stole things, I liked to break into things, including my old school. (I wanted to be Remington Steele, because my Mom watched. And, in retrospect, because Pierce Brosnan is HOT!) In college, I had to propose a chemical reaction for lab, and wrote the synthesis of ecstasy (B+, by the way). My prof said I had a "pleasant mischevious side." So, I decided to try to break into my apartment with a credit card. It took me about 3 seconds.

So the mixed blessing is this (if you haven't gotten it already!). I was glad that I could break into my apartment, but obviously, it wasn't particularly comforting to know that my apartment was that accessible. You can bet I'll be using the dead bolt more often. But since I was freaked, my friend took me out to dinner. Given I just had to deal with fear, but got dinner, I think I won tonight.

So you have a great night, too.

In my pulpit

I was born and raised as a Roman Catholic -- baptism, first communion, confirmation, altar boy, thirteen years of Catholic school. My parents were always to the left of center and disagreed with a lot of the rules, but they took us to church every week. Two of my aunts even joined the convent. I've always said I'm still Catholic, even though I haven't been to Mass in a while. This is mostly due to my parents, who always believed in working for change from within, rather than bolting. But the new witch hunt to get gays out of the seminary may be the last straw for me.

There are a thousand reasons why this is wrong, in addition to the fact that IT'S JUST WRONG. But I'm going to limit myself to 3 for now.

1) Beggars can't be choosers. There aren't enough priests as it is, so it's pretty silly to start rejecting groups of people. If you're willing to take a vow of celibacy, why does the gender of the people with whom you're not going to have sex matter? And do you have to have had intercourse with a man to lose your job, or only have thought about it -- as many men who consider themselves "straight" have? Ask a parish that is losing their church for lack of a priest and I doubt they'll care if he kissed another boy once in college. The only reason to reject and eject gay seminarians at this time is that you are trying to respond to the sex scandal (and/or you are a phobe who just got elected pope). Which brings us to point number 2...

2) Homosexuals are NOT pedophiles. This is not just my feeling on the subject. Most studies show that if and when pedophiles have adult relationships, they are with members of the opposite sex. Getting all of the gay men out of the seminary/priesthood is unlikely to help the churches problem with pedophilia. Increasing the culture of secrecy around the clergy, though, could make things worse.

3) "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" - Genesis 1:26
Whether Anne Coulter and Benedict XVI like it or not, Catholicism says we are ALL made in God's image -- gay, straight, or otherwise. We are also all sinners. For the record, I don't believe in the concept of sinning in your thoughts -- the difference between what you think and what you do is called your conscience. For members of the thought police, it should be noted that sex outside of marriage, in any form, is a sin. So a straight seminarian not acting on heterosexual thoughts is just as guilty (if you believe in that) as a homosexual thinking about men. Regardless, we're talking about people who have confessed any prior acts and promised not to ever have sex again. There is also a bit of a disconnect between bishops playing the pedophile shell game but ejecting celibate men who have thought about having sex with other men.

In short, the only things this new policy will accomplish are:
1) Alienating any remaining homosexual Catholics
2) Worsening the culture of secrecy that spawned a scandal
3) Needlessly destroying the careers of some honorable young men
4) Depleting an already small pool of priests

I find it hard to believe such a useless plan is coming from the Divine. Wherever Pope Benedict's heavenly tuner is (staff, hat, albs), I hope he adjusts it soon.

I'm Back

Sorry I've been away so long. I had too many things to say and I sort of got frozen. Like when your room is so messy that you can't even begin to clean it up. I started three different blogs, but kept moving on because something got under my skin even more. Even though the news cycle has moved forward, I'm still going to post them over the next few days. Rather than another endless post, I'm breaking them up into a few shorter (hopefully) pieces.

Before I finish those off, though, I wanted to have a little fun. I have been trying to buy a Razr phone for the past few weeks, but really didn't see paying $200 for one. I tried Best Buy and the web, but even if you got it cheaper you didn't have much control over the plan, and there were a few things I wanted. I finally bit the bullet and went to the Cingular store on Market Street yesterday.

The clerk (a cutie) had a boxed up Black Razr in his hand for me when I asked "What about that Ericsson phone?"

"The S710?" he asked.

"I don't know...the one with the good camera," I replied.

"That's the 710. I'm getting one later today. It has everything the Razr has and more. But it's for the pros only. Do you think you can handle it?" I am thrilled to know that it only takes five minutes to size me up as someone who can be dared into anything. (Perhaps only almost anything, especially when the car is involved. Sorry, Chad.)

So I have a new Ericsson S710. He may have duped me, but I like it so far. I think the pictures are pretty good for a phone. You can decide for yourselves -- this is the view from my balcony this morning.

I had been keeping a mental log of strange signs I saw around town that I wanted to photograph. Unfortunately, most of them are gone. One of my favorites was at the San Remo Hotel on Mason. The original said "Future Home of America's Oldest Italian Restaurant". I think these two together still sort of make the point. I'm not sure you can be America's Oldest Italian Restaurant if you HAVEN'T EVEN OPENED YET. (Sorry, I haven't figured out how to flip the pictures yet. Helpful hints are welcome.)



My other favorite, also gone I fear, was on Market Street. It seems to have been replaced by an ad for the Halloween store. It begged you to donate your car to the Heritage for the Blind. Hmmm.

As an aside, I happened to have time to read The Onion at work the other day. My horoscope (Leo) had me in stitches all week. Check it out -- www.theonion.com. If you know me, or eventually get to, you'll find its pretty on point. I'd rewrite it here, but that's probably plagiarism.

By the way, it just came to my attention that the word blogs isn't known to the blogger spell check.

That's it for now -- heavier issues to come over the next few days.