Crossing the Great Divide

The solace in pondering

I'm pondering the issue of association, where like minded people gather in cyber space to offer encouragement, support, etc for each other.

I'm pondering said site, located on a prominent women's website, one that offers numerous message boards for various interests.

I'm pondering a board, sanctioned, where there is discussion of a group of people, with this discussion advocating, encouraging, & embracing a view of an entire community as less than, sinful, and worthy of legal restriction.

Yesterday I was pointed at just such a board on iVillage, in relation to Rev. Ted Haggard and his resignation for illicit affairs. One post referred to this being the work of 'the enemy.' Well, doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that meant "we have seen the enemy, and it is you."

So I decided to post, and think my postings were respectful, but as with anything that will be a different viewpoint, it will not meet with wide acceptance, and of course... I knew this. And predictibly, the reaction was to basically buzz off and let us be bigots in peace.

Which leads me to my pondering, pondering how it is a prominent website for women encourages the continuation and perpetuation of this thinking. Would the KKK be given their own board to discuss and support each other? "Gee, last night... last night I was out just looking for minorities to hassle, when, would you believe it? a big group of *them* surrounded my car and told me to get out of here, they wanted no trouble. I'm really upset..."

Establishing little havens for the free flow of bigoted outlook does not sound like productive use of space. Yeah, I know, Christians believe gays are sinners and that we, not they are wrong... it's a legitimate social issue. Hmmmm, and so wasn't segregation, a half century ago. Didn't make it right.

A moderator has intervened on the board, warning of stronger action, when no violations have taken place. I've written this moderator, and of course expect precisely nothing to happen. I've provided four links that refute their assertion this is a support board, because the content of those four is decidedly bigoted and hateful. The most recent of which was a post to lead another to this: Homosexual Agenda.

I've said my piece there, or perhaps my peace, they undoubtedly are praying for my redemption, and nothing probably changed.

Or maybe one mind has begun to ponder, along with me.

Wonder of wonders - may we be saved by South Dakota?

It has my attention, and I am intrigued.

A few days ago, a story was posted on how South Dakota voters are slightly leaning towards casting aside the legislatively enacted ban on abortion (see Feminist Majority Newswire 31 October, 2006.

And now comes Tight Battle Over SD Anti-Gay Amendment. 

Imagine... if they strike down the restrictive choice law, coupled with a rejection of the anti-gay amendment, in one election this geographically large, small population state could send a huge message. Oh, I don't for a moment think the message is we are pro-choice, pro-gay, rather it is we don't need silly laws restricting the rights of people.

South Dakota has been viewed as a test case, a jump off point to rid America of that dastardly thing called choice. It has no particular importance in the grand anti-gay scheme, excepting an unanticipated role of rally killer if it's people choose to eschew law banning gays.

And what a welcome relief that would be. We watched as an overwhelmingly male legislature pulled the rug out from under women, and now... those of us who were despairing the passage of the anti-choice law, now take hope in what this state will bring forth on Tuesday. I wonder how those in the SD legislature will feel and react to such a vote?

Meanwhile, whilst most states will vote to impose their marriage bans, a victory is still a victory is still a sign of viewpoints in flux. We start with one, we convince one more, we work mind by mind, showing our fellow citizens there is nothing about us to fear.

On Tuesday, send your good thoughts towards South Dakota. Heck mine are going to be everywhere, hoping for political change... this is one more change I never expected to be comtemplating. 

Paedophilia and the wildly speculative

I'm listening to NPR's Here and Now on the noon hour, listening to a spokesperson for Log Cabin Republicans denounce Mark Foley.

Hey, all well and good, but um... didja notice that every other comment out there is associating being gay with paedophilia? Not a bloody word out of him in refutation.

Some spokesperson.

So it falls to us shout in the wilderness bloggers to speak up and out. Repeat after me... this is not about being gay. This is not about being gay. This is not about being gay.

I've argued the point for days on message boards, and one poster, in the most cogent moment of their life, posted in this manner to me:

GERRY STUDDS!!!

GERRY STUDDS!!!

This after I spent several days defending Republicans from the equally ridiculous assertions that Republicans are somehow associated with paedophilia.

Can we get past this shit already? Must we associate everything with paedophilia? You like coke, not Pepsi, must be a paedophile. You prefer Fox News to MSNBC? Paedophile. Speak French? Paedophile.

We tend to measure everyone else by the actions of the few or the one. Yet we try to pulverise the rights of the few or the one. Funny how we attach so much importance to small numbers, then think them irrelevant.

Well, psssssssst... paedophilia is not gay associative. Plenty of hetero paedophiles out and about folks... along with a whole herd of hetero rapists and abusers. So what? There are gay folk who do these things, there is no correlation to whom one is naturally attracted to.

Yet now we have to endure the fallout of this. And for that, a big huge, well swung foot square on Mr. Foley's backside. For the idiots who then make the association with gays.. may you face a rotten veggie food fight.

Insecurity

My radio shares more sordid details. Another school shooting, more children... dead.

Children. Sometimes children murdering children. Sometimes adults murdering children. Sometimes children murdering adults.

There is a common thread here, and that common thread is insecurity.

For my money, insecurity is one of the most powerful forces on this planet, a compulsion to be. To be seen favourably, to be simply one among many, to fit in with one's peers, and not the opposite... to be singled out, to be ostracised, to be put down.

Our social complexity embraces our young from the moment of their birth. Every interaction produces learned conditioning in that child, and in adults as well... we are learning and conditioning from birth until death.

We learn how to communicate. We learn laughter that is happy, we learn laughter that is harmless, and we learn laughter that springs from the discomfort of another. We single out those different, because that difference might be visible. Subconsciously, we single out out of our own insecurity, and out of our own need to avoid being the target of someone singling us out.

Each of us will perceive these things within our own understanding of the world. One person can shrug it off, another will be enraged. One has learned to channel, another is consumed by it.

I've done the insecurity thing, my whole life was one big insecure mess held together by a will to survive, and my optimistic glue. Look to the future... past there... past that other obstacle as well... to what lie beyond. I'm a passive creature, but even my passivity took out others as things finally came to one sorry focal point.

So the news shares yet another sad tale. Yanno, there are lessons here, beyond the let's get tough and get these people shouts. It's about why insecurities abound. It's about ignoring things like bullying and taunting. It's about seeing nothing wrong with putting down whole classes of people, of singling out visible or expressed differences, and jumping all over them.

Some of us rationalise; some strike back. By that time, it's too late. As I recall, each of these recent events has carried story of someone who felt slighted or put down. Our society really needs to take a closer look at this, we need to study, and learn and make sure we see the put downs, and we see the receptions they get. On both sides of this issue... we need to work.

Historical reminders

For the second time this week, someone (consider this both singular and plural) has been accused of not being sufficiently anti-gay. The latest to face the accusation is yet another on the conservative side: Fox News.

My thanks to willa for posting this story: Headline we never expected to write: Conservative criticizes Fox News' gay-friendliness

Why Mr. LaBarbera... mind if we switch to visual?

*WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING* *WARNING*

Actual photos ahead... some are graphic.

The above, with the exception of the two Jewish children forced to wear the Star of David, are all of ugliness in the American past. The last three are of a Bigfoot at Wounded Knee, a lynching, and another image from Wounded Knee, 1892. Those are real bodies on the ground, folks... slaughtered.
This is where prejudice goes, unless people start realising what it is they say and advocate, who they put down, how they put them down. I'd... like to stop it here, mkay?

And I stand on the backs of gay America...

those sodomites who rightly lie face down in the filth of our streets, to speak to you, our great citizenry, to tell you we wll rid this nation of this scourge upon this Christian nation.

Nope, not a quote, but it may as well be.

I saw a snippet on the news tonight about the Florida primaries, which apparently are tomorrow. One Republican candidate, a Tom Gallagher, is accusing his opponent ( Charlie Crist. OK, so I'm not supposed to say something like, Jesus, how can you vote against Crist? Sorry, Tarrant, forgive?) of not being sufficiently anti-gay. Florida gubernatorial candidate accuses opponent of not being antigay enough

Name the emotion, it was working it's way through my inner workings as the news report concluded. Now I make no claim to know anything about who is running in Florida, but it is a good sized state with a lot of influence, and hope like hell we are not going to trade Bush for some guy who would have us wearing funny little symbols on our clothing.

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm rather tired of being kicked around by some loud mouthed politician who thinks the way to office is to grind his boots into my face. I cannot fathom how a region so otherwise friendly can simultaneously have such a virulent anti-gay outlook... but then again, this area is all for our rights, but get on a highway, and middle fingers are waving, horns are blowing, and we like to yell intelligent things like "Yankees suck!"

And on the other side of the fence, in a state not so far to the north of Florida... this meathead is denying being supportive of gay rights Tennessee Gov. & GOP Opponent Argue Over Gay Marriage Amendment. Sigh. If ya stop with the "am not!" response to the "are too!" accusations, stop and say why in bloody hell it's not right to persecute people, maybe... maybe... someone might actually listen. But, nooooooooooo... run like the flipping wind away from any meaningful dialogue.

Meanwhile, and not to be outdone, Plight Of Iraqi Gays Worsens.

I'm just not up for a rant on ol' George and the Mismanagers. Remember those days post 11 September? America had come together in a spirit of giving, and yeah, with intent to get the bad guys. Now... we are introducing anarchy, and y'all know what comes with anarchy.

The human war on women

There is that ugly recorded history, where patriarchy predominates. There are the examples in the lives of most every woman alive. There are even the experiences from my own brief time crossed gender. and there are the ongoing stories, from within the western world, from without the western world, from places where anarchy reigns.

And they all lead towards one conclusion... if given the chance, women are will be preyed upon in greater numbers than men are.

We see stories like this one this morning Childhood Marriages Resurface in Iraq. We see women raped in Pakistan get to shoulder the blame for it's occurrence. We see in Iraq it leads to honour killings. In China, if you are female, your own birth is more hazardous for you. If you live in a war zone, or even one where there is an absence of law, the potential for rape increases astronomically.

After 11 September, I read an article about Mohammed Atta, the supposed leader of the not so merry band of hijackers. Apparently he left instructions no women should visit his grave. When he earned his masters, his mentor being a woman, he refused to shake her hand.

Want to be a Catholic priest, a religion of 1 billion? Better be male. President of the United States? Hey, if you aim for the House of Representatives or Senate, your peers are 13% of the total number serving.

Then there is FGM, the horrors of how AIDS is spreading through Africa, the places where educating women is seen as evil, our own unrelenting pressure to convince women to turn back (see the twice yearly NY Times piece of women leaving the workplace for the wonders of home life.)

And we enable this conduct. How many women have I heard cut down the appearance of a successful woman, say... Hillary?

When a Warren Jeffs becomes news, with it comes all the wives of his crowd, convinced they deserve to be one in 25.

We hear of how choice is evil, and that to choose the option of abortion is to choose to murder. Of course, women have no right to self determination, men need a say.

In this country, much attention recently focuses on the failures of boys in the classroom. Left out of most of these stories is the fact the performance of boys has been pretty consistent, undeclining, but that the performance of girls has gone nuts... so oh, my, why... this is horrible.

What we should be saying is... how do we move all forward, but no... this gets the press it does now, in the way that viagra got insurance funding upon it's introduction, whilst the pill took decades.

This world needs to take a good, hard look, but... it's not going to happen in our lifetimes. What exactly will it take?

It's sad to see

Instance I. Although I am not of any religion or church, it is rather sad to see what is happening within the Episcopal church.

The latest story Episcopal dioceses wrestle with leaving church over gays in The Advocate isn't breaking new ground - we've been discussing and debating this for a while, and especially the last 4 months or so. Ever since Gene Robinson, by all accounts of all I know who have met him, is a decent and honourable man. He must so agonise over the furor over his election, and that is just so very unfair. Yet he has the strength of his community with him. Here... is in indeed well respected.

So seven malcontents wish to take up and move off on their own. Because of bigotry. Not because of defending those who are slighted, but encouraging those who slight. Is this a perversion of what I carry in my mind of what religion should be all about?

What we see are people who have lived entire lives under a societal outlook where gay was bad, sick, dirty, unworthy, uncontrolled inner lust, perverted, abnormal, which... actually was for the most part a 20th century construct of the 19th century's inverted.

Rather than have to take a hard look at their outlook, rather than admit a life spent under these assumptions was wrong, they seek to justify, to find that justification in their Bibles, a place where... they use a Nostradomus like ambiguity to their advantage in shaping their particular desired outcome.

I feel sorry for them, in a way. It is hard to face down flawed thoughts, to admit to a wrong pathway. And on the other hand, there are so many others who stand firmly by the more liberal direction of the church. Hopefully, these wounds shall heal, and they shall stay as one. Hopefully.

Instance II. The NY Times ran an interesting article last Sunday, on The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack. In one instance, a couple is mentioned, whereby they had split several years ago when one could simply not remain in a relationship with a partner who crossed gender lines. I do understand this. Completely. And they have my sympathy.

My crossing was devastating to so many, and the one who most took this square on was my ex partner of over a quarter century. The memories are painful, and y'all know there was pain on both sides... but yanno... I do miss her, she was after all, for so very long... my best friend. But the damage is irrepairable, the scars permanent, and the gender issues... all too real. I'd never have survived without having done this. Hell, I came damn close to falling off the far edge.

That does not change the sadness and empathy felt when contemplating what the person(s) in this story faced. It's not easy.

For the record, those of you who have read this story and have interest in the outlook of others, I support having transmen under the dyke umbrella, so long as that is their wish. If one seeks to keep those ties to this community, welcome. It's pretty kewl to see us include both transwomen and transmen, and I take pride in this embracing.

Are we paying attention?

I'm pretty sure those of you in government, from the president to the locals, all have learned a very hard lesson. But just in case, there is something I'd like to call your attention to.

It's a government agency, one that reports to you, Mr. President. They put out very useful information. Here's an example...

Now this is a captured image of a live file that updates as conditions are reported.

Notice that track, Mr. President. And couple that with this:

The intensity forecast calls for Ernesto to reach 100 kt intensity in 120 hr...in good agreement with the ships and gfdl models...and the storm could get stronger than that.  it should be noted that the intensity guidance...for as of yet undetermined reasons...calls for little intensification after 96 hr even though there are no obvious inhibiting factors. 

You can visit the live version of this map here... National Hurricane Center

In summary...Ernesto could become a potentially dangerous hurricane as it moves across the northwestern Caribbean sea and the Gulf of Mexico. interests in these areas should closely monitor the progress of this system.

Now you may say you are well aware of this. And maybe you would have said that last year on August 27th or so, but subsequent events suggest maybe someone should have been waving this in front of you, and all the local officials in the impacted areas.

So here we are... some 5 days back, looking at the future. We hope this storm dissipates, we hope if it strikes it strikes low population areas... but right now, this map is drawn with a big warning arrow aimed right for New Orleans. And I hope, instead of Michael Chertoff appearing on NPR (as he did yesterday) talking about what he got right last year, and why what went wrong wasn't his fault, suppose he spend his time preparing and warning.

Shall I have bells and whistles attached to this blogpost?

Barbie and the portrayal of something she isn't

Barbie. Never had one.

My daughters had millions, or so it seemed in the middle of the night as I trod barefoot, sans light, through hall and room for whatever reason. They really feel nice on bare feet.

Alas, this is not a lament on the bygone annoyances of children reluctant to put their toys away. Rather, it's a rant about Barbie. More specifically, Mattel's condemnation of dyke Barbie.

We've had the original Barbie, sweet 16 Barbie, businesswoman Barbie, rock star Barbie, apparently Party Time Barbie, Pink Jubilee Barbie, Limited Gold Edition Barbie, presidential candidate Barbie (damn, if only she had won) City Style Barbie, medieval Barbie, probably colonial Barbie, and who knows what other Barbie. She has a waist size half mine and boobs, hell.. the boobs on the doll are bigger than I am.

And so we have Mattel taking offence to an art exhibit in Brazil Barbie Lesbian Art Results In Threatened Lawsuit.

Yeah, Mattel! Draw the line here! Nothing like worrying about some big blowhard member of Myopia On The Family calling for the 4,387th boycott of someone actually acknowledging lgbt folk are human beings. So let's demonstrate your open mindedness and caring, and show the world we will stamp out any immoral portrayal of Barbie that does not generate more revenue for the company.

Yanno, Mattel boxed themselves in, pun intended. If they shuddup about it,let the exhibit proceed sans comment, why... would we have ever heard Barbie was out of the closet? Instead, create controversy, call attention to this show, ensure it's success around the world... and trash us to show your loyalty to the American dollar um, I mean doll, um... way.

Apparently Barbie may spark gender confusion, right... it was Barbie in the closet with the third option what done me in.