Archive Page 9

12
Nov
10

No Matter What

By Eric 1 Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Gay, Other People's Stories and Religion

For a months there’s been a documentary in my Netflix queue called For The Bible Tells Me So. More or less, it’s an overview of how the Bible has been misused to denigrate and condemn gays and lesbians (and our abominable ilk) for generations.

I put off watching it because it sounded sort of dry, but last night I gave it a look. It was particularly illuminating, given the recent spate of suicides and the continuing violence and vitriol against the GLBT community.

Plus, it starts with the classic 1977 Anita Bryant pie-in-the-face clip. Who could resist that?

Go, Minneapolis! (And nice jacket, dude!)

The film makes a light examination of about five religious families and how a son or a daughter coming out of the closet has affected them — how both sides reacted to the situation at first and how they’ve gotten on since.

On exhibit are Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson and his family, Dick Gephardt’s lesbian daughter, a lesbian raised by Southern Baptist preachers, a mother whose beliefs lead to a family tragedy (a particularly disturbing and moving story) and activist Jake Reitan and his Lutheran family. Cut into their stories are various commentaries from ministers, preachers, rabbis and doctors on the big-ticket biblical references that get Christian loudmouths so heated up about homosexuality.

What I kept hearing over and over in these coming out stories was how … my parents, my friends, my colleagues, my neighbors love me for who I am, no matter what.

Continue reading ‘No Matter What’

10
Nov
10

Trickle-Down Down

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Politics
Tags: , ,

The finer points of economic theories have eluded me for most of my life. I’ve had enough book learning to understand that supply-vs-demand graph, but it pretty much ends there.

It’s a shame, really, because so much of what drives the current political debate is supposedly about the economy. And I know a lot of it has to be bullshit, but I don’t know enough to know what not to believe. So I usually dismiss most of it as political clap trap. Doesn’t matter what either party says on the campaign trail. Chances are it’s not going to happen anyway.

When I hear Republicans and Tea Partiers hammer away at their small-government/cut-taxes/create-jobs dogma, it makes me wonder if they’re as interested in the truth about how the world really works as they are in convenient populist political ideology.

So I got curious about that tent post of the Right, the axiom that, above all else, cutting taxes is an absolute guarantee of job growth. Is this true? Can it be proved?

Continue reading ‘Trickle-Down Down’

03
Nov
10

Of Coffee and Donuts and Half-Eaten Hoagies

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Philadelphia, Politics, Strangers Observed and The People in Your Neighborhood
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On Election Day, I always have a soft spot in my heart for the volunteers working the polls. Every polling station has some variation of the same thing: a half dozen retirees, sitting on folding chairs, stationed at folding tables, a box of a dozen donuts on one side, a slowly cooling polystyrene cup of coffee on the other. They look over the rims of their glasses at you. They squint in the dull fluorescent, sometimes gently flickering, light.

Whatcha last name, hon?

Continue reading ‘Of Coffee and Donuts and Half-Eaten Hoagies’

21
Oct
10

To Ask or Not To Tell, That is the Question?

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Dumb, Gay and Politics
Tags: , ,

Following the news about the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy can be dizzying. Reporters have a hard time explaining this. Gay citizens are feeling confused and disappointed. Everyone else is just flummoxed. It’s like: Am I reading this correctly?

So, last week a court ruled that DADT is unconstitutional and the Pentagon could not enforce the policy. In turn, the Pentagon announced yesterday that it will stop investigations and discharges of gay soldiers and will now accept openly gay recruits. Nice work.

The then the administration responded by asking for a freeze on that court’s decision. So, in effect, the Pentagon can enforce DADT. Wait… what?

While the appeals court reviews the policy, there’s a lot of judicial uncertainty about what precisely the rules are. So the Department of Justice, with urging from the White House, asked for this stay to temporarily maintain the status quo until there’s a firm decision.

Continue reading ‘To Ask or Not To Tell, That is the Question?’

16
Oct
10

Look Both Ways

By Eric 2 Comments
Categories: New York Minute and Strangers Observed
Tags: ,

Sometimes crossing the street in New York City is a flirtation with disaster. Times Square is a far more dangerous neighborhood than many. The volume of foot traffic, taxis, delivery trucks, police and emergency vehicles — it’s overwhelming.

Whether the pedestrians are tourists or business people, most of them can’t be bothered to get off their cell phones or stop texting or look away from the person they’re telling such an important story to wait a sec, yo, you gotta hear this, wait a sec, dude! — or even to follow traffic signals. Look both ways before crossing the street? We gave up that bunk back on Sesame Street. This is New York City, baby!

That’s not to say pedestrians are always at fault. Walkers rule over drivers in a lot of ways in New York. Sometimes traveling on foot really is faster. And if it’s not, dammit, I’ll make it faster. I gotta get across the street now! So of course sometimes the motorists, the cabbies, the cops consider it their duty to educate pedestrians by giving them a horn-honking thrill, making a thinly veiled threat. My friend calls cabs “yellow flying death.”

On a rainy night this week, leaving work for the bus back to Philadelphia, I wove through clusters of spiked umbrellas and danced around puddles to cross 7th Avenue… Broadway… to the opposite corner… toward 8th Avenue. And freedom. There were fewer people out than normal because of the rain. But also because of the rain, the reconstituted city filth made any sidewalk and street an oil slick.

A very specific sequence of sounds occurs when a moving car strikes a human body. Even if you’ve never heard them before, even if you don’t witness it with your eyes, they’re distinct enough that you know instantly what is happening when you hear them. It’s not a cracking of bones. It’s not a splash of blood and wet parts.

Continue reading ‘Look Both Ways’

15
Oct
10

Make It Better

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay, Me, Other People's Stories and People We Like
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Gays and straights and countless people from the spectrum between are coming out of the woodwork to contribute their voices to the It Gets Better Project. As well-adjusted GLBT folk, we have the power to influence the world around us and the duty to speak up for young people who don’t feel like they have a voice.

It does get better. But anyone can say that. “It gets better” is almost a cliché by now, and a little too simple to say. We have to demonstrate that it gets better or we’re wasting our time. A suicidal kid isn’t going to listen to platitudes. He’s going to want evidence.

With that in mind, a bunch of my colleagues joined up to put this together. These are successful, creative, happy, intelligent people at a gay cable network — in other words, they are all of these things because of homosexuality.

It was inspirational to see so many people wanting to participate, and it was affirming to be surrounded by so much gay (and straight) good will.

(You can see me at about 05:14.)

Bullying doesn’t stop when you grow up. We still have bully neighbors, bully religious leaders, bullies in government, bully coworkers, bullies on TV and radio and online. It doesn’t end. Not yet. But it does get better — because you find the strength and the support and the righteousness and the confidence to push on, live your life.

The best revenge against bullies is our success.

15
Oct
10

Be Careful What You Promise

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Gay, Other People's Stories, People We Don't Like and Religion
Tags: ,

This in from the AP: Back in September, when crackpot fame whore Terry Jones was threatening to burn a pile of Qurans, a New Jersey car dealer (and former NY Giant) did a radio ad in which he announced he’d give the Florida preacher the use of a Hyundai off his lot for a year if he backed down.

Apparently he mistook TV news for a game show. Who could blame him, really? So, no sooner had Jones put the lighter fluid away than one of his helpers called up the dealer looking to collect on the offer — under threat of calling him out on “false advertising.”

I guess if it’s in an ad, it must be true… so, a promise is a promise, I guess.

The dealer says he wants nothing to do with Jones — apart from making himself one of the highest-rollers to donate to Dove World Outreach Center, apparently — so he’s telling him to keep the thing. To his PR rep’s delight, Jones has said he’s going to donate the car to an organization that helps abused Muslim women.

I was once offered a car if I would renounce homosexuality. It was a pick-up truck, as I recall. But I stuck to my gay guns and ended up with a great husband. And he has a car. So I guess I’m set.

12
Oct
10

Telling Tales

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Funny, Me, Other People's Stories and Philadelphia

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was recorded for a radio series reading a story he wrote about his exile from southern Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

He’s good at telling stories. Some kind of southern thing, I guess. And he’s earned some renown in the local story slam circuit. In fact, he was on the radio because he was one of a sextet of story slam audience favorites.

My friends and I like to support that sort of thing, so a bunch of us joined him at his apartment on the night of the broadcast.

It was delightfully Golden Age, each of us taking a silent seat wherever we could to listen to a radio in real time. Table lamps cast an amber glow on our expectant faces. There was an old, gray dog curled up on the couch, and it was raining outside. All we were missing was a roaring fireplace and the faint haze of smoldering pipe tobacco. We could have been a pack of kids staying up past our bedtime to catch Gunsmoke on the wireless or to hear what happened last to Little Orphan Annie.

Actually, it was nothing at all like that. We all checked in on Foursquare, and I tweeted throughout the evening. And there was plenty of smoking, but it was all done just outside of the front door. But we did listen to the show on an ancient, crackly radio. The antenna was completely broken off. It leaned against a lamp for vertical support, and naught but gravity held it on its base with the most tenuous of connections. Sharp “s” and “f” sounds came through harsh and distorted. If someone stood too near the radio, we’d lose the signal for a moment. If a footfall shook the floor, the antenna would slip off its perch and the radio would go altogether silent.

It was right near the liquor, so we lost the signal a lot.

Continue reading ‘Telling Tales’

11
Oct
10

Hungry, Hungry Hypocrite?

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Ain't That America, Food, New York and Politics
Tags: ,

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is getting some guff for pushing to prevent poor families from buying sugary snacks and sodas with food stamps while at the same time offering similar items to employees at his financial firm. This is the height of hypocrisy, some say. (“Mayor’s Soda Plan and His Company’s Policy Differ“)

He has, on the record, served junk food at Gracie Mansion and at events in his townhouse. Further — gasp — he uses salt at home.

So, does this deflate his argument that poor families should not be using food stamps to buy crap for their kids? Not at all.

Bloomberg’s employees are given healthy snacks as well as Coke and Fanta. I agree 100% that it’s a little weird that he gives away soda. His employees are basically a captive audience. They will take what is given to them. Just like families on welfare. They’ll take what’s available to them. So, to align better with his public policy, he should probably do away with the free junk food at work.

Better yet, he should install a vending machine. Then will people have to actually buy the stuff. It would be completely their choice and their responsibility.

If he wants to salt his food and if his employees want to spend their own money on junk food or bring in whatever they buy from elsewhere, let them. But we should not allow poor families to use taxpayer money to buy crap for their kids. Force them to make better choices. Lobby retailers to offer better options.

Food stamps should be used for things that are actually nutritionally beneficial for kids. Anything else is a waste of money and an insult to the taxpayers who fund assistance programs. Food stamps are for food: fruit and vegetables, meat, cheese, bread, milk. Someone at some point has already had to decide what families are allowed to purchase with food stamps. Items have already been vetted and either added to or eliminated from the program. Under further scrutiny, it’s a very excellent idea to cut as much nutritionally void content as we can. A government in the business of assisting its less fortunate citizens has a responsibility to give them access to the good stuff, not some bullshit that’s going to make them worse off.

05
Oct
10

Something Fishy

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Food and Science
Tags: ,

So, some biotech company called Aqua Bounty made a salmon that grows faster and bigger than normal salmon. The FDA is in the process of approving it, but the U.S. Consumers Union doesn’t trust the research and wants more independent investigation. And furthermore, if the fish is approved for market, they want it to be labeled as a genetically modified food. But the FDA says there’s “no biologically relevant difference” between it and its un-engineered predecessor, so there’s no need to give it any special label. Besides that, argues, Aqua Bounty, if you label it as “genetically modified,” people will be scared away and not buy it.

I don’t know why the genetic modification lobby would be against a label. The stated reason for developing a genetically modified salmon are purely capitalistic: human population growth, increased demand for, um, “fish protein,” and the need to keep production up and costs low. So, act like a capitalist. Put your trust in the market and let the consumers decide if it’s a viable business.

If the genetically modified product is cheaper and there is no difference in quality and people want it, they will buy it, and you’ll have a winner. Congratulations!

If people don’t like it, you have to either work harder to prove it’s the same as naturally occurring fish or just suck it up as a loss. New products fail all the time. Remember Crystal Pepsi?

I don’t have a knee-jerk reaction against genetically modified fish. Humans have been engaging in genetic modification and artificial selection since they stopped roaming the plains, built some tents, and decided to give farming a go. You think God made the vegetables you see at the grocery store? Nope. That dog you have curled in your lap? Sorry. People made them by choosing the stuff they liked and throwing away the stuff they didn’t like. Tampering with nature is just one of our things — and the people who are against GM salmon have been living happily as the products of a society that embraces genetic trickery for generations.

However, we also have the potential to cause great harm with invasive species that can wreck the natural balance — or create a new one.

For that reason, I say label it as what it is. Simple honesty. Any fear of calling it what it is suggests that there’s a reason to be afraid. And don’t be so distrustful of the consumer. If it’s cheaper and it takes good, no one’s going to care anyway.

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