Atlanta
Bucharest
Budapest
Chicago
D.C.
Lisbon
Madrid
Mexico City
New York City
Paris
Rome
San Francisco
San Paulo
San Salvador
Seattle
Sydney
Warsaw
Celebrating Gay Pride Around the World
Atlanta
Bucharest
Budapest
Chicago
D.C.
Lisbon
Madrid
Mexico City
New York City
Paris
Rome
San Francisco
San Paulo
San Salvador
Seattle
Sydney
Warsaw
Kudos to ABC 7 Chicago
It’s rare that I have the opportunity to commend the media on something really well done, but this is definitely one of those occasions.
Yesterday was Chicago’s 37th Annual Gay Pride Parade, which ABC not only broadcast last night, but has also made available at their website as part of their coverage, which is prominently linked from their front page. Well done, ABC. It’s Chicago’s second-largest parade of the year (not to mention one of the most fun events of the year, which is really saying something considering Blues Fest, Jazz Fest, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and the tons of other great annual events in Chicago), and they really gave it the coverage it deserves.
For anyone who’s a Star Trek fan, you might be interested in watching the first video segment, during which George Takei, who served as Grand Marshal, is interviewed.
Blogwars IV
Neil the Ethical Werewolf, posting at Ezra’s place, has delved into the issues of Jerome Armstrong’s past SEC problems and his relationship with Kos. The post was met with a deluge of negative responses, including a sustained attack by dKos’ Armando, who has deemed Neil “a piece of crap” and “a slimy idiot.”
Ezra has written a post in response, detailing his opinions on the matter, and includes some interesting observations about YearlyKos and some thoughts on transparency that are worth checking out.
Commenter Petey makes two important points in the thread associated with Neil’s post. One: “The Warner episode and the SEC revelations are not occurring in a vacuum,” and Two: “I don't think Markos is satan, but I do think he's been engaging in some deeply questionable practices for some time now. And I don't think folks on the left are helping the cause by reflexively defending him.”
I would suggest that not only are they not helping the cause, but are also giving credence to the assertions (as peddled for days now at TNR, for example) that there is an embargo on any legitimate criticism of Kos in the Lefty blogosphere. I’ll repeat what I left as a comment in response to Ezra’s post:
As for the issues being raised, both concerning the relationship between Kos and Armstrong and concerning the relationship between the blogosphere and the establishment, discussing them isn't some radically new idea. Salon published a feature on Armstrong (for which both he and Kos were interviewed) earlier this month, which addressed Kos' perceived flips on Paul Hackett and the DLC after Armstrong's employment by Sherrod Brown and Mark Warner, respectively. And as far back as 2004, Billmon (writing for the LA Times) broached the issue of A-list bloggers "selling out," which was not exactly met with unanimous appreciation then, either.
In that piece, Billmon forecasted, quite correctly, that "If the mainstream media are true to past form, they will treat the A-list blogs—commercialized, domesticated—as if they are the entire blogosphere, while studiously ignoring the more eccentric, subversive currents swirling deeper down," which is precisely what we've seen during this whole TNR debacle, even though, as I've pointed out, Kos' "influence and visibility are exactly what makes him perhaps the singularly worst possible exemplar from which to extrapolate details about the rest of us." In light of that, the rest of us who populate the blogosphere do and should have a very keen interest in what our most visible representatives are doing—which is not to suggest we should, as you point out, engage in unfair speculation, but certainly it's not only fair to raise the questions, but in our own best interest, since we are inextricably defined by the A-listers, whether we want to or should be, or not.
UPDATE: In response to my comments at Ezra’s, Joseph of Hughes for America emailed me and made a good point, which I am reprinting with his permission: “If we're to consider sunshine the best disinfectant and transparency one of the foremost traits our politicians should possess, what's stopping some of us from expecting the same things from ourselves? From the blogosphere?
…I most certainly want to know what the bottom line is with issues like this. Not because I enjoy trafficking in rumor and speculation, but specifically because a part (a small part) of my identity online is tied to those with whom I associate. And something that reflects badly on them reflects, in some small way, badly on me, and us as a whole. So you are 100 percent correct that it is in our best interest to continue discussing issues like this.”
"Take the test. Take control."
Tomorrow is National HIV Testing Day. NHTD is an annual campaign produced by the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA). The CDC estimates that more than 1,000,000 Americans are living with HIV, including more than 415,000 living with AIDS.
Who is at risk?African-Americans
African-Americans have been disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic, and this disparity has grown worse over time. While African-Americans represent 12% of the U.S. population, they account for more than half (54%) of the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections each year in the U.S.3 In 2001, white women represented 15% of new AIDS cases compared to 34% for African-American women.
Latinos
Latino populations continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. While Latinos represent 14% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 19% of AIDS cases reported in 20014 and 19% of the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections each year. In 2001, white women represented 15% of new AIDS cases compared to 23% for Latinas.
Men Who Have Sex With Men
Men who have sex with men (MSM) account for an estimated 42% of all new HIV infections even as the infection rate has declined since the early years of the epidemic. Reports of increased sexual risk-taking among MSM is a growing trend, and MSM are at significantly greater risk of HIV infection than other groups in the U.S. Younger MSM are at particularly high risk,and minority MSM now account for a majority of AIDS cases reported among MSM.
Women
The impact of AIDS on women is growing rapidly; women accounted for 7% of new AIDS cases in 1989 and 29% in 2004. An estimated 30% of new HIV infections are found in women. Three-quarters of new HIV infections are due to heterosexual sex.
Youth
At least half of people becoming infected with HIV infections each year are those under the age of 25. Most young people are infected through sex. Young African-Americans represent 64% of new AIDS cases among 13-19 year olds,and Latinos represent 20% of this age group. Teenage girls account for 54% of new AIDS cases among teenagers.
Go here to find a NHTD event near you (sadly, they aren't in all states) or you can find a test site here.
X missed the spot
I'm pathetically late getting around to the whole X-Men 3 thing, and most folks have gone on to the Superman Returns vigil or the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest watch, but I do have something to add to the public record. I just got around to seeing X2: United - that's after having seen the third installment in the series, and I'm glad I saw it out of order. This way, I'm merely disappointed with X-Men: The Last Stand...whereas had I seen the films in their proper order, I'd be disappointed, angry, and inconsolably bitter as well.
This laugher from X3 director Brett Ratner:
Unless you're a very sophisticated viewer, I don't think you'd be able to tell Bryan Singer's version to my version. Could you?Uh, yeah. Regrettably.
(Cross-posted somewhere in the blue area of the moon...)
Blogwars III
Zengerle was wrong, Greenwald was right, and I’m passing that along as per my marching orders from Kos.
Zengerle is a total douche for trying to minimize the seriousness of printing a fake email without having made the slightest effort to contact its purported author to confirm its authenticity. And, having done so in a series of posts trying to discredit the blogosphere in a transparent attempt to prove the superiority of the traditional media, he’s also positioned himself as frontrunner in the 2006 Purveyor of Breathtaking Irony Competition.
Shhh! McCain says, “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.”
Giving me yet another reason to solidly and invariably loathe him, presumed GOP presidential candidate John McCain has reasserted his support of the military’s lame policy on gay servicemembers: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
When asked by Edge reporter Peter Cassels his position on DADT, McCain replied, "All the senior members of the military say that it's working." When asked directly if he would vote for Massachusetts Congressman Marty Meehan's bill (H.R. 1059) to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, McCain said, "No."His reason? Well, because “Gen. Colin Powell, Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf, all of the military leaders that I respect and admire came up with this policy.” One would think that perhaps a man who had himself served in the military might have an opinion on why the policy is necessary, and whether the culture of the military needs to be dependent on homobigoted rhetoric or if, perchance, it could accommodate openly gay servicemembers with an adjustment of attitude toward the LGBT community. But McCain doesn’t have any opinions on anything controversial or difficult. He just has talking points and deference for policymakers that aren’t him.
Which might make a thinking person wonder whether he’s fit to lead.
(Hat tip to 429 News.)
In other gender-related studies…
MissPenName passes on this gem:
Researchers from the University of Connecticut and Elon University found that after a brief five-minute first meeting, men were more likely than woman to infer a sexual chemistry, regardless of whether it was there or not…I love how we needed to do a study to find out that men mistake friendliness for romantic interest more often than women. They could have saved a lot of money by just asking any woman who’s ever been to a bar.
The research was unclear as to why men were more likely than women to falsely perceive this sexual dynamic, but other research on the subject has suggested that men might be mislabeling friendliness, [Maurice Lévesque, co-author of the study] said.
While they found that particularly "masculine" men were no more likely to oversexualize their conversations, there was a hint that men who self-assessed themselves as more "sensitive" were less likely to do so, he said.Uh huh, lol. Something that both women and men already know—hence serving as the basis for countless comedic characters, like Two Wild and Crazy Guys and the Butabi brothers.
The researchers also found that men who self-assessed themselves to be "sexy" were more likely to perceive a sexual dynamic that was not necessarily there.
"For men, there is a step back here somewhere, where you have to think about what cues were you are actually getting. Clearly, the first judgment they are making may not necessarily be accurate," he said.Yeah. We know.
"For women, be aware this may well be a judgment he is making almost regardless of what you're doing."
In all seriousness, what I find most interesting about this phenomenon is that, even though men mistake benign signals for sexual chemistry more often than women, members of both sexes do it—something else we all know—and we tend to regard men who do it, at worst, as pathetic “losers,” but women who do it as unhinged “psychos.” But, as Lévesque point out, “that men appear to ‘oversexualize’ more often than their female counterparts may provide the basis of future studies that address the roots of sexual harassment and date rape.” That’s not to suggest (on either his part or mine) that every man who misinterprets signals will become a harasser or rapist, but, of those who do, sexual predators almost invariably believe that their victims—whether a mature woman on a date or a 6-year-old child—has not only indicated consent, but actually seduced her/his attacker.
The vast majority of sexual predators are male, meaning that men who misconstrue signals are more likely to be dangerous than women who do, and yet the conventional wisdom casts mistaken women as the “psychos.” When men say no, women go on a rampage! Fatal Attraction, The Crush, Swimfan, Disclosure, etc. Misery is the classic example of a deranged woman who has convinced herself of an alternate reality and holds the object of her obsession hostage, literally crippling him so that he must stay in her possession and do her bidding (though, in this case, she has misread the whole world, not just Paul Sheldon’s signals regarding their relationship).
I started out by saying that any woman who’s been in a bar would be able to confirm the findings of this study (and most men would, too), and, though I was being flippant, I believe that’s true. And yet, our conventional wisdom and pop culture represent the polar opposite of what we intrinsically regard as our real-world experiences—that it’s the women you’ve really got to watch out for, that will be the most likely to do harm to the senders of misread signals. It’s a failure to consider the implications of such bizarre dichotomies that allows a culture of harassment and rape to persist, as we avoid addressing its causes in favor of downing popcorn to funhouse mirror images of its expressions.
“Boy Crisis” Overstated
Well, whaddaya know:
A study to be released today looking at long-term trends in test scores and academic success argues that widespread reports of American boys being in crisis are greatly overstated.Passed on by Toast. (You can read the Education Sector’s full report here. As an aside, I’m familiar with their work and most of their funders, and aside from a dedication to equal educational opportunities, they’re not an ideologically homogenous group.)
In fact, young males in school are in many ways doing better than ever, the Washington-based think tank Education Sector said.
Using data compiled from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the think tank found that over the past three decades boys' test scores are mostly up, more of them are going to college and more are getting bachelor's degrees.
Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, as a gender boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that while the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him.
"The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse," the report says, "it's good news about girls doing better."
As I’ve said every time I’ve written about this mythological crisis, to perpetrate the erroneous notion that educational disparities are down to a strict gender divide helps neither boys nor girls—especially the ones who really are in crisis. This is primarily a class issue, which is something Americans don’t like to address. It’s so much more fun to make it about boys and girls (thus offering another opportunity to blame those dirty feminists) than about the Haves and the Have-Nots, but it’s also counterproductive, and will deepen even further the divides between rich and poor as long as we ignore where the real divides lie.
A Terrifying Message from Al Gore
"Yes. I play a streetwise pimp. With a hybrid pimpmobile."
Here's a little new Futurama, for those of you (like me) who can't wait a couple years.
(Tip of the Energy Dome to Bob.)
Caption This Photo
Shenkin the goat looks into the camera as it stands guard at the entrance to Cardiff Castle with Goat Major Sargent David Joseph...(AFP/File/Scott Ramsey)
Goat Major. Who knew?
Blogwars II
Still not getting in the thick of it, but feel obliged to respond to TNR-er Lee Siegel’s follow-up to his post I mentioned yesterday. Lee’s latest:
Sure enough, fanaticism ruled in the responses to what I wrote yesterday.Then he goes on to try to prove Kos is a fascist, and in the popular manner of blogosphere critics, implicitly suggest that so is the rest of the blogosphere—because as goes Kos, so go the rest of us.
"Moron"; "Wanker" (a favorite blogofascist insult, maybe because of the similarity between the most strident blogging and masturbating); and "Asshole" have been the three most common polemical gambits. … All these abusive attempts to autocratically or dictatorially control criticism came about because I said that the blogosphere had the quality of fascism, which my dictionary defines as "any tendency toward or actual exercise of severe autocratic or dictatorial control." The proof, you might say, is in the puddingheads.
I am overwhelmed by the intolerance and rage in the blogosphere. … This truly is the stuff of thuggery and fascism.
Let’s presume, for the moment, that Kos is everything his most vociferous critics make him out to be. So what if he were? Kos could be a jack-booted, Kalashnikov-toting ruffian or a polka-dot dress bedecked circus monkey, and neither would provide any beneficial insight into what the rest of the blogosphere looks—or acts—like. In support of the contrarian theory, his prominence in invoked, but his influence and visibility are exactly what makes him perhaps the singularly worst possible exemplar from which to extrapolate details about the rest of us. He is, quite literally, the exception, not the rule—and not all of us aspire to be just like him when we grow up.
The truth is, most of us never will grow up, by an A-list definition. Many bloggers I have devotedly read and admired have fallen away, drifting from their keyboards and onto other pursuits. Many bloggers who, in my estimation, deserve more attention, a bigger audience, fail to get it in spite of their dogged determination and skill. The vast majority of those who have achieved some level of modest success will never be as big as Kos. That’s the blogosphere. DailyKos is one blog. And even there, the blog is separate from its namesake.
Siegel’s post is frustratingly indicative of so many blog critics, who rely almost exclusively on the top echelon of bloggers and the comments and emails they receive from the most aggressive commentariat (which may include those who blog and those who exclusively comment), to draw their conclusions about the blogosphere as a whole. He ignores legions of bloggers and commenters who are neither Kos nor invective-wielding emailers; that we are larger in number appears not to matter. They define us by our fringes, but one does not know a person by looking only at his head and his toes.
“A Broad, Conditions-Based Timetable”
I like Drum’s response to Newsweek’s report on the draft copy of Iraq’s soon-to-be-announced national reconciliation plan, which includes a statement from National Assembly member Mahmoud Othman that “no one disagrees with the concept of a broad, conditions-based timetable.” Drum says:
Did you get that? No one disagrees with the concept of a broad, conditions-based timetable.Spot-on. It’s also the kind of request Bush needs to address the concerns of those within and outwith our borders who have subtly and not-so-subtly encouraged him to give some indication of his long-term intentions. Nebulous phraseology like “stay the course” may play in Peoria (though not as well as it used to), but the effectiveness of vague pronouncements in most of the rest of the world is long past its sell-by date. An actual plan would be most welcome—and would restore some of our credibility with more than just Iraqis.
President Bush would be flatly insane to turn this opportunity down. It's precisely the kind of request he needs in order to declare victory, assure everyone that the job is close to done, and make it clear that he respects Iraqi sovereignty and doesn't plan to occupy their country forever. There would be no loss of face and no loss of national honor.
Conversely, if he resists it, it would be hard not to conclude that he was doing so solely because a "broad, conditions-based timetable" also happens to be exactly the position of the vast majority of the Democratic Party—and he would rather chew off his own big toe than do anything that might turn down the volume on the domestic partisan jihad that's been so politically successful for Republicans ever since 9/11. I guess we'll find out soon.
Of course, if the lack of an objection to a broad, coalition-based timetable is central to discerning a possible opportunity, the possibility that Bush will be a stubborn, petulant bundle of spite is the unavoidable centerpiece in contemplating the possible failure to rise to the occasion. Having spent the past million years or so determinedly slagging off Dem proposals and deliberately mischaracterizing them as “cutting and running” and “rais[ing] the white flag of surrender in the war on terror,” he’s painted himself into a difficult corner, from which the only prospect of escape is selling essentially the exact same idea of which he’s been unrelentingly contemptuous by identifying it as “what Iraq wants”—and hoping nobody notices.
Then again, if navigating our way out of Iraq using a map that looks suspiciously like the one drawn by the Dems gets his base’s knickers in an angry twist, one has to wonder how much they’re genuinely interested in a real solution, as opposed to winning a political game at any cost—including more lives of the troops they profess to support.
But, speaking of the troops, there’s more to that national reconciliation plan than the appeal for a timetable. It also requests “Amnesty for all insurgents who attacked U.S. and Iraqi military targets. Release of all security detainees from U.S. and Iraqi prisons. Compensation for victims of coalition military operations.” Several Senate Republicans have already spoken in favor of amnesty, which isn’t going down well with some soldiers (one example here) and may present additional navigational problems for Bush. While the document makes an effort to distinguish between insurgents and terrorists, specifically “in response to Sunni politicians' demands that the ‘national resistance’ should not be punished for what they see as legitimate self-defense in attacks against a foreign occupying power,” there’s a rather unfortunate history of “with us or against us” chiefly promulgated by Bush himself that may leave such distinctions ringing hollow to certain ears.
In other words, he’s got a lot of hurdles yet to climb to find his way out of this clusterfuck, many of which—as usual—are of his own making.
(Crossposted at Ezra’s place.)
Our Crappy Media, Part One Billion
Aaron Spelling and Patsy Ramsey have died. Sad, in the way death always is, and noteworthy enough (in both cases) for a mention on the news.
Except…now it’s all the news there is. My friend Steve just emailed me: “Watching MSNBC—it's as if Iraq doesn't exist because JONBENET'S MOMMY DIED. Make. it. stop.”
I wish I could.
RIP Mr. Spelling; Ms. Ramsey.
Al and Dave
Did anyone else watch Al Gore on the Letterman show tonight?
Dave gave him three full segments, and they talked about the Iraq War, the Cuban Korean Missile Crisis, the environment, and whether he's going to run for president (no).
And, yes, I readily admit I am biased, but nonetheless, he was great. Any progressive would have been proud to watch him speak so eloquently on the giant, stinking mess that is our foreign policy, and speak so passionately about his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.
Al says he's campaigning right now, not for the presidency, but to change the conventional wisdom about global warming in America, to push the issue past the tipping point to a place where a candidate of either party must make addressing global warming a primary concern, because the American people demand it. And you know what? I liked hearing that. Even as my 15-year wish to have Al Gore be my president slowly slips further away each time he says it, I still like hearing it. It's nice to hear a true patriot and humanitarian speak from his heart, trying to inspire and engage. We could use a few more men-and-women-who-might-never-be-president like Al Gore.
The Virtual Pub is Open
<—— That’s me, looking extremely chubby and extremely drunk at The Cellar Bar in Edinburgh, 2001. I can’t remember what I was drinking that night, but I think it was whiskey stone sours. I believe this was the same night we saw Margaret Cho at the Edinburgh Festival. All I remember clearly is snogging Mr. Shakes like a madwoman, because that’s what you do in pubs in Britain.
So what are you drinking, Shakers? And what’s on your mind this evening?
Question of the Day
Stolen shamelessly from Matt (who’s got some great answers at his place): What are your favorite opening shots of movies?
I’ll just repeat the answer I left there…
Lost in Translation was one of the first that came to my mind, even before I scrolled down to see [he]’d included it on [his] list.
I adore the opening of Garden State, in which Braff’s character is sitting silent and still among hysterical people on a descending plane.
I could go on endlessly listing favorites for various aesthetic reasons, but a particular sentimental favorite is the opening of Love, Actually, which is a series of people greeting one another at Heathrow Airport. I love watching people meet at airports, throwing arms around each other’s necks and stepping back to drink in the vision of someone they haven’t seen in ages. And having spent the first part of my relationship with [Mr. Shakes] 4,000 miles apart, scenes of people meeting at airports (especially Heathrow) always makes me feel both nostalgic and relieved that we don’t have to do that anymore.
Blogwars
I’ve been following the whole Kos-Jerome-TNR debacle, but haven’t commented on it for a couple of reasons, the primary one being that I just can’t be arsed (I’m not a member of Advertise Liberally; I’m not a member of the Townhouse private email list for progressive bloggers; and I’ve never been asked to join either, so it doesn’t directly affect me), followed closely by not feeling as though it would benefit the community around here in any way, but has the potential to divide it by implicitly compelling people to take sides. So big wev.
But within the virtual reams of commentary on the subject, I’ve read two things that I wanted to mention.
TNR’s Lee Siegel asserts that the blogosphere is “hard fascism with a Microsoft face,” and explains:
Even beyond the thuggishness, what I despise about so many blogurus, is the frivolity of their "readers." DailyKos might have hundreds of responses to his posts, but after five or six of them the interminable thread meanders into trivial subjects that have nothing to do with the subject that briefly provoked it. The blogosphere's lack of concentration is even more dangerous than all its rage. In the Middle East, they struggle with belief. In the United States, we struggle with attention. The blogosphere's fanaticism is, in many ways, the triumph of a lack of focus.Meanwhile, Garance Franke-Ruta at Tapped quotes Chris Bowers, answering a question about whether blogs served as models for offline communities:
I would say no. [audience laughter] That would be a very dark and disturbing place....where someone jumps into a room and says something that makes everyone mad, and then a mob starts chasing them...I can't imagine a community structured like the blogosphere. That would be really scary.Not to get all Carrie Bradshaw about it, but both of these categorizations of the blogosphere got me thinking about the community here at Shakespeare’s Sister—and neither of them seem to describe us very accurately. (Less traffic has its benefits.) Even and especially when threads get very long—and they’re never “dKos” long, but they get into the triple digits on occasions—the participants retain focus, and probably not out of some particular diligence to avoid thread drift, but because the conversations are interesting, and we like talking to one another.
For the most part, we’re very respectful of one another, too—even when we disagree, which we do fairly regularly. It’s inevitable; we are female and male, straight and gay and trans, black and white and brown and red and kinda peachy, old and young and somewhere in the middle, religious and not, American and not, feminist and not, former Republicans, Democrats, former Democrats, Greens, and Haikuist. A vision of our community translated into the real world doesn’t seem like a dark and disturbing place to me—it seems like a really excellent house party that I’d love to attend.
And for that, I just wanted to say thank you. I quite like this juke joint, and the people who make it hop every day.
