Sex With Ducks

In response to the Rev. Pat Robertson, who warned on his TV show -- which, incidentally, is watched by wide swaths of people in certain parts of the country, so we shouldn't underestimate his influence -- that legalizing marriage for all would lead to all sorts of weirdness and immoral behavior, including, but not limited to, "sex with ducks," these two gals, Riki "Garfunkel" Lindhome and Kate "Oates" Micucci, have created video that shines a light on the absurdity of people like Pat Robertson and his followers. There's a way to respond to such brilliant, well-reasoned arguments as the wingnut Right's, and it's with sanity, intelligence and sometimes humor.

Sonia Sotomayor, Racist

She talks about how being a Latina woman has enhanced her perspective -- racist! She made a decision supporting the city and against some non-black firefighters' claims of racism -- she hates white people! She wants people to correctly pronounce her name -- double racist!!

Thank God the New York Times has actually looked at and analyzed Judge Sotomayor's record.

Here's what they found:

"Of the 96 (race-related cases while serving as an appeals judge), Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case.

"So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1."

Next question?

Ellen's Commencement Speech

Wow, this was really good. I think this commencement speech should be given not only to all graduates, but also to those just starting college and adult life in general. It was funny, it was serious, it was, also, unlike some celebrity commencement speeches, about the graduates and not the speaker -- though she used her life experiences to show the kids that you can go through great ups and downs in life and still come out of it, eventually, on top, and with your own dignity.

This only makes me like Ellen more.

Ellen's Commencement Speech

Wow, this was really good. I think this commencement speech should be given not only to all graduates, but also to those just starting college and adult life in general. It was funny, it was serious, it was, also, unlike some celebrity commencement speeches, about the graduates and not the speaker -- though she used her life experiences to show the kids that you can go through great ups and downs in life and still come out of it, eventually, on top, and with your own dignity.

This only makes me like Ellen more.

How Sad is the State of Journalism?

According to this interactive chart from Time magazine, journalists polled are slightly happier than butchers, mail deliverers and bus drivers.

I know, I'd think it would not be that bad to be a butcher. Just as depressing is that more insurance salespeople said they were happy in their work than journos. Interestingly, PR people are only slightly happier than journalists.

Among the happiest were priests, firefighters, architects and actors. So when I'm hanging out with actors and architects, now I know for sure that I'm the least "happy" one in the bunch. (Perhaps I should investigate a career change more seriously. I do like preaching to the choir...)

Surviving CHM

Tonight was the last time that I will go to an event at the Chicago History Museum. It was about the fourth time in the past year and a half Stephen and I had gone to the museum for an after museum hours event. The others we had attended while members last year. Each event was dull and unexciting in its own way, from Catholics in Chicago to a couple Out at CHM programs to a Black Sox lecture. Each was so dull that Chicago History Museum event set a new standard for our own inside jokes when something we are at is unbearably stuffy and self-important and sleep-inducing.

But tonight would be different! This one was all about "Surviving Reagan." It was about gays in the 1980s and how they dealt with the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the "Reagan Revolution" and his ignoring the AIDS crisis and how all these conditions all together made activists out of people who would have never dreamt of it and how living through the Reagan years was and what it was like and how terrifying yet at the same time exciting it was! This program was going to be different! This would show the under-30 attendees ($10 for members, $12 for non-members) what real activism and civil disobedience was like and what it was for and we would hear from people (those who were still alive) who had been on the frontlines and who were still working and fighting in many other ways now.

An hour and a half later, after we got our bags from the bag/coat check, I picked up one of the flyers for the event, and Stephen looked at it and said, "Surviving Reagan -- looks interesting. We'll have to come back for that."

Such was the nature of the even...actually, it wasn't an evening, it was a barely 90-minute program, cut short because there was another event happening elsewhere in the city that the organizers of this event were concerned that some in this crowd might miss if this event went too long. In short, the program got off to a very promising start, with a brief video of Joan Jett Black, a Black drag queen who ran for president in the 1980s. From that point on, it sunk like a rock. Instead of telling us who paid to be there what it was like to live through a supposedly oppressive era and how people who were not marching in lock-step with the Republicans did so, what we got was three people on stage talking about the problems of being part of lefty organizations and how contentious things sometimes got and how some segments of the population were underrepresented and how white males ran everything (no one dared mention that the white males likely paid for everything around that time, as well), and how "when I was living in Berlin, I was a Marxist and my boyfriend was a Maoist and .." blah blah blah.

You know, one of Ronald Reagan's great sins was that it took him seven years -- after hundreds of thousands of Americans had died of AIDS -- before he dared mention the word publicly. Ironically, at a program about surviving Reagan in the 80s, I think Reagan was mentioned once by the panelists. The most interesting part of the evening came near the end, when the moderator, who was obviously taking cues to wrap things up from someone offstage, mentioned the time she has spent recently at the Reagan Library, reading previously classified documents and memos to and from Reagan's staffers.

It was incredible, as well, that Danny Sotomayor, who was as close to the epitome of the 1980s AIDS activist that he had in Chicago was mentioned only in passing, briefly, and that was only to make a point about some of the infighting and bickering that went on in groups like Act Up and Queer Nation. That, as well as the mere wave from the stage that a saint like Lori Cannon got, were sinful omissions and demonstrated just how useless the event was.

"You Know How I Know You're Gay?"

You have three names.

According to After Elton, David Ogden Stiers, he of M*A*S*H fame, has joined David Hyde Pierce and Neil Patrick Harris as actors whom we always were pretty sure were gay, and were not at all surprised (though happy nonetheless) to find out they really were.

Since his days on M*A*S*H Ogden Stiers has done some other TV (ironically playing an effete aristocratic fellow like he played on M*A*S*H on an episode of Frasier), as well as movie voiceover work (for Disney animated features).

'Dude, Where R My Pants?'

This gives "Drunk Dialing" a whole new meaning. Some geniuses -- and I mean that affectionately -- have come up with what I think is the greatest blog/Web site ever, or at least of the year so far.

It's called, appropriately enough, Texts From Last Night, and like its name suggests, it is a compendium of text mesages that people, mostly drinky, many in various states of undress, have sent their friends (or, sometimes, by mistake, strangers or political campaigns). Their friends, in a display of undying trust and loyalty, then forwarded these text messages to the blog. The results are often hilarious, and it's great mindless, time-wasting, voyeuristic reading. For added enjoyment, they also provide the area code the texts originated from, but the rest is anonymous -- no names are ever revealed, which is good for the texters, once you start reading them.

Some of my favorite excerpts, from a quick read this morning:

* "(813): dude i woke up laying next to some guy. i dont have my bra or his name. he has a nice tv though."

* "(614): I may or may not have started my period at the bar. Good thing I have dark jeans on."

* "(413): Dude this is getting pretty serious, we had a sober make out session last night."

(What is it about texting that makes people call each other "Dude" so much?)

* "(815): Why did you send me a picture of a dick?
(630): It was an accident sry. Not mine tho."

(Oh, those crazy west and northwest suburban Chicago kids!)

* "(323): WTF. you left me with no condoms and you ate all my mac and cheese. scumbag."

And one that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it:

* "(415): Trimmed my pubes and broke your paper shredder. Separate events."

Love it. Dear Crazy Texters: Keep 'em coming, please.