Actress and lesbian Cynthia Nixon has caused a firestorm in the gayosphere by saying that for her, sexual orientation was a choice.

Obviously, this view undermines the arguments of gay political orthodoxy, and gives the right wingnuts who run “gay rehabilitation prayer camps” support that they were right all along–”See Harold, I told you he was just doing it to be ornery.”  Of course, the truth is  probably like most things: The truth is somewhere in between. It may be for her, but it isn’t for most gay people.

At any rate, this becomes pretty scary when coupled with another news item from the week, news that conservatives are conservative because they are stupid. Full story »

by Marti Smith

“If all we feel is outrage, then we have not found a remedy.”- Jim Geringer, Governor, State of Wyoming, following Matthew Shepard’s death

Since I was a young girl and old enough to understand who I was, I have known discrimination. It hardens your heart and dampens your soul until you conquer the fear. Some don’t make it and commit suicide. To have the media, family, co-workers and friends tell jokes and make hurtful remarks is the life of a GLBT person. Unless you are a person of color, you likely don’t know what it is like to live a life of separation. As a GLBT person you are not allowed to do basic things like date, or attend the prom. You can’t hold hands or show affection in public for fear of retribution, or get relationship advice, or bring your boyfriend or girlfriend home to meet the parents. If you do, then you risk abandonment, ridicule, or even physical harm. There are churches who condemn us, and even reject us from attending. We are made to seem sub-human, and even demonic. You can’t experience the life you were born to live….freedom to choose, freedom to live, freedom to marry.

I had to leave a job I loved in my early career for fear of being found out. Full story »

#25: The Land of Lincoln: Travels in Abe’s America by Andrew Ferguson (2007)

The Lincoln Memorial looked like frost tonight. The flurry that had blanketed the lawn white earlier in the day had been glazed with rain and then turned to ice, so the whole landscape shimmered under the Memorial’s lights.

Frost or no, the Memorial still has that beacon-in-the-dark look, which is, I suppose, its main purpose. It is, as I’ve noted before, as close to a temple as we have in America. The man who sits inside has become such an icon he’s lost humanity.

I’m here because I’ve just finished journalist Andrew Ferguson’s Land of Lincoln, an exploration of the man and, in the end, a defense of that icon. I’m here for the icon, too.

Full story »

Can’t make this stuff up, folks. I mean, you could, but everybody would think you were, well, making stuff up.

On tonight’s episode of Modern Family (perhaps TV’s best sitcom), one of the storylines deals with what happens when a young child starts using curse words. One of America’s more prominent gatekeepers of the public morality, the Parents Television council, immediately lurched into a galloping conniption. That they haven’t actually seen the episode, and hence, have no fudging idea what they’re screeching about, is beside the point.

“It’s not suitable language for a child that young in the real world, and it’s not suitable language for a child that young on television, either.” Full story »

#17: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz (1998)

If there’s one book I’ve wished I’d written, it’s Confederates in the Attic. Of course, Tony Horwitz already wrote it, nearly two decades ago (I can hardly believe it’s been that long). Here’s a guy who wandered around the South, talking to people about the legacy of the Civil War. He asked questions, had conversations, observed, listened, and explored the landscape for himself. He immersed himself in the story.

This, I tell my students, is what good feature writers do. They take the time to do the story justice—and a story as complex as this one requires a lot of time if you’re going to be thorough and fair. That’s what I respect most about Horwitz’s work on the book: he takes the time to make an honest attempt at trying to understanding that which, I suspect, can never fully be understood.

Full story »

Fischer: ‘Allah is a demon god of darkness, violence, death, and destruction’
Right Wing Watch
December 23, 2011

Considering Bryan Fischer makes so much hateful noise, is it any wonder that it’s relatively difficult to get in touch with him? More’s the pity. I had hoped to correct him for his error and apprise him of a little bit of his own scripture. Maybe this post or one like it will come to his attention, not that I think it will actually do any good. Meanwhile, this post is reaching you. That is what matters.

Disclosure: I, myself, am not an adherent of any faith. I am an agnostic. Full story »

It’s a funny thing that happens when someone buys a car, especially when they think they’re buying a none-too-common sort. I buy a Mitsuyota RoadWidget, in part because it is distinctive, and next thing I know, they’re everywhere! A similar thing happens when one starts blogging in earnest apparently. Substantive issues that may have long been around may have flown under the personal radar since they weren’t perceived as personally relevant. Write an article or three and next thing ya know, there’s significant current debate surrounding related issues all over the place.

Cases in point. As I’m scanning the headlines today looking for fodder, I find what appear to be three relevant articles. Full story »

There are still nights when the nightmares take me. I am in the shop I made, standing behind the till. My wares are on the shelves and I wait for customers who never come.

I see them passing by the windows, looking in. Their faces, a mixture of curiosity and contempt I dare not interpret. My heart-beat is erratic. I am 10 kilos down. I sleep maybe two hours a night. I am exhausted.

These are the days and nights of the zombie business; too weak to live, too strong to die. Full story »

“Prices are set on the margin,” goes a general statement in economics and finance.  It sounds a bit glib as an explanation for the current abject state of the global economy.  How for the “want of a nail” could the battle be lost?

Think of an airplane consisting of 100 seats which only breaks even on the cost for a single journey once there are 65 paying customers on board.  The blue seats in the image below are the 64 patiently waiting to start their travels.  The red chair waits for the 65th customer.

The 65th passenger

Full story »

It was Sun Tzu who said, “Always leave an escape route for a surrounded enemy, for a soldier with no prospect of escape will fight with the strength of ten men.”  A person with no escape has nothing to lose, they have lost everything already, and so they will take many with them.

When I was very young I read a collection of horror short-stories.  They were mostly childish waffle except for one which has left a life-long impression on me.

In the story, a successful author begins to receive a series of letters from all across Europe.  The message is the same, “You made me and I am coming to meet you.” Signed with the name of the principal villain in the author’s long-running series of books, the author assumes a prank but calls in the police.  Despite protection, one night the character arrives. Full story »

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When a Hellfire missile fired from a drone aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency struck ground in Yemen last month, it killed two American citizens. One was New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki, 40; the other was Samir Khan, 25, who publishes media for Al Qaeda promoting terrorism.

Al-Awlaki, says the American government, is a terrorist. Officials say he had crossed the line between propagandist and operations planner. That earned him a spot on a kill-or-capture list nearly two years ago. Is he a bad guy? Probably. Did he deserve to die? Perhaps. But neither “probably” nor “perhaps” is the standard for conviction in American criminal trials — beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, reports Charlie Savage of The New York Times, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel more than a year ago crafted a 50-page memorandum. Full story »

The sense of awakening in The Souls of Black Folk is impossible to miss. Published in 1903, when the new century itself was just awakening, Souls seemed to blink away the veil for a people looking for their own cultural and historical legacy. What W.E.B. Du Bois saw—and helped others see—was nothing short of amazing.

Perhaps it’s because I am now just awakening to Du Bois’ work that I see the book in such a light. Perhaps that awakening colors my view, giving me wide-eyed wonder to a text that’s over a century old. Perhaps my middle-class, middle-aged whiteness, and my historical place in the Twenty-First Century, makes Du Bois’ work seem exotic and wonderful.

Perhaps. Full story »

Part one of two…

I work in the world of marketing and corporate communications, and my track record of business-related posts (here and at my biz site, Black Dog Strategic) probably demonstrates how seriously I take ethical concerns. For instance, not long ago I made clear that I think understanding the truth of a bad news story aimed at a client comes before worrying about how to respond. Back in November, I took a hard look at the eroding credibility of public relations as a profession and suggested that maybe the behavior of PR practitioners had a lot to do with our slide into lawyer, hooker and used car salesman territory. At various points along the way I’ve ventured opinions on everything and everybody from Toyota to Tiger Woods (to Augusta National), BP to LBJ, Target to Dillard’s, and Rupert Murdoch to the Denver Post, which used to be a newspaper.

Sometimes I comment on what strike me as merely bad strategies. Full story »

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s post about UK Prime Minster David Cameron’s thoughts on shutting down social media in times of unrest, we hear this from Erik Sass at MediaPost:

Colorado’s Department of Public Safety is employing analysts at the Colorado Information Analysis Center to monitor sites like Twitter and Facebook with an eye to gleaning information about potentially disruptive events before they happen. By monitoring social media conversations in real time, the CDPS analysts hope to be able to identify emerging threats within minutes of the first discussion by online plotters — which should hopefully allow law enforcement to preempt, for example, apparently spontaneous outbursts of civil disorder. Full story »

Analystas are rushing in from all sides to examine the causes of the UK riots. Are they about politics and economics? Or is it merely an opportunity for thugs to steal stuff? All we know for sure is that it’s anarchy in the UK and that Saturday’s opening day match between Spurs and Everton has been postponed.

One sobering development, though, should make British citizens sit up and take notice. For that matter, those of us in America and in every other democracy in the world (to the extent that the US can be called a democracy) need to be paying very close attention to the latest move by Brit Prime Minister David Cameron, who is calling on Parliament to consider enacting social media bans. Full story »