Turn and Face the Change

Okay, it’s time to go out and vote, my bitches. This has been a long, exhausting couple of years (I can't believe this election cycle started when I still lived in Boston (Goddess, I miss that city)). It should come as little surprise that GayProf fully supports Barack Obama. While he was not my candidate in the primary (That was Bill Richardson), he has nonetheless won me over (starting with his speech on race). It would also be supreme foolishness to imagine that a McCain victory would do anything but push this nation further into despair and chaos.

Rather than rambling on about actual issues or platforms (which nobody seems to care about these days anyway), let me give you some unconventional reasons to vote for Obama today:

* An Obama victory would be the first time since JFK that we had a hot president. I suppose Bill Clinton had some charm among hetero women, but, whatever. . . I want a commander in chief who is smokin’ by gay standards. We are a much better judge of male beauty.



* Obama is just a fun word to say.

* An Obama victory will really piss off the radical Christians in this nation. That always makes me happy.

* Massive numbers of Democrats will finally be able to wean themselves off of the Xanax that they have been taking for the past eight years.

* I have it on good authority that one of Obama's first executive orders will be to reunite Charlie's Angels to capture Osama bin Laden.



* Having young children in the White House will mean that we will have the pleasure of seeing swing sets erected on the west lawn of the White House. Who could be anxious about the future of the economy when you are watching kids run and play? If Chase bank fails, maybe they will even get a pony.

* Not having Sarah Palin hanging around the White House will mean that we won’t see the west lawn turned into a Turkey Shoot.


* There will be a 0.000002 percent chance that Congress will actually do something productive in the next two years

* The rest of the world will think that we might have some sanity as a nation after all.

* Michelle Obama will join the ranks of Jacqueline Kennedy, Rosalynn Carter, and Hillary Clinton as accomplished and smart spouses of Presidents who deserve respect in their own right. Okay, I actually loathe that this nation draws in spouses as a measure for electability. Don’t even get me started about that cookie recipe bullshit, either. Besides, if ever there was any doubt that the “First Lady” position was meaningless, Laura Bush proved it by being a total void of a person. Nonetheless, I can’t help myself in fantasizing about Michelle Obama using her talents and intelligence in a new administration.



* Even more importantly, Michelle Obama will be the new Jacqueline Kennedy in terms of style and fashion. Indeed, I have already heard colleagues and friends of mine recommending that people dress like her (and not just the drag queens, either). Personally, I would love to see her rock a pill box hat. How did that family get to be so insanely good looking?



* We will no longer have to hear the term “maverick” thirty times a day.

* I can keep my Obama t-shirts as mementoes of an historic campaign rather than turning them into rags to wash my car.

* Sarah Palin’s lack of awareness about international affairs and basic news will be rejected as unacceptable. Heck, it might even mean that the rest of the nation will be required to learn about the world around them.

* Joe Biden’s borderline Tourette syndrome will provide comedians with comic gold for the next four years.

* It will open the door for a GayProf campaign victory in 2016.

Now stop reading this blog and vote.

What to Wear, What to Wear, четыре

Truly loyal readers, who have been with CoG from the start four years ago, know that there is a tradition here. Yes, those loyal readers remember that each year I contemplate my inability to prefect a Halloween costume. Those same loyal readers would also be able to name four supporting characters who have appeared regularly on this blog. They would dutiful remember every move that I have made and the tribulations that accompanied them. A truly loyal reader would know the make and model of my first car ever or where I attended high school. They would have small altars in their house dedicated to my image. Genuinely loyal readers would be willing to take a bullet for me. **Sigh** I wonder if such a reader exists. . .

What were we talking about? Oh, right, Halloween is just around the corner. As the official gay holiday, the expectations are always so high for choosing the right outfit. Yet, no matter how I have tried these past four years, my costumes have never quite worked out. Let me take you through what I aim for and the disappointing results:

What I Aim for: Yoda

We all remember the unexpected way that Yoda made his way into our imagination and became a pop-culture icon. Sure, he started out as an annoying muppett who terrorized R2-D2. Eventually, though, he became the voice of reason who delivered sage advice in the form of inverted sentences. Yoda is so much part of our social consciousness, that his name is even identified by the spell checker in my wordprocessor. A great costume he is.

What I End Up With: Gollum

Gollum, like Yoda, has his own creative rules for grammar. Less cute and endearing, though, Gollum would be a disappointing result when aiming for Yoda. Who ever turned to Gollum for advice? As far as I know, he never evidence any strange mental powers that gave him the ability to levitate rocks.

***

What I Aim for: Mr. Belvedere, 1948

Of all the fussy, crypto-gay film characters to appear in the postwar era, Mr. Belvedere ranks the highest in my estimation. He was a man after my own heart. Belvedere disdained Americans’ unhealthy obsession with children, scorned the prison of heterosexual marriage, and tore apart environmentally and socially disastrous suburbs. This costume would scare the snot out of Focus on the Family.

What I End Up With: Mr. Belvedere, 1985

After skulking around Fantasy Island, this pale imitation of the original Belvedere ended up enslaved to a middle-class hetero home in Pennsylvania. Sure, he was just as fussy as his forties counterpart, but the Reagan-era Belvedere did less to critique the banality of suburbia than to become its queer booster. Okay, there was the "very special episode" that dealt with HIV. Mostly, though, this Belvedere hid from real controversy. He even disavowed his queernees by locking himself into an unexpected and largely unexplained hetero marriage. Who needs to go disguised as that closeted mess?

***

What I Aim for: Phyllis Schlafly

Going as the original Queen of Mean, Phyllis Schlafly, could quite possibly be the scariest costume ever conceived. Shlafly burst onto the national scene in 1964 with a screed that proclaimed that the Republican Party was not radically conservative enough. Never one to shy away from blatantly irresponsible statements, Shlafly frequently spoke out against any attempt to curb the proliferation of nuclear arms during the Cold War. Heck, she declared the atomic bomb “a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise god.”

More recently, she has called for a purge of the Supreme Court of “activist judges” (Read: Anybody who disagrees with Phyllis Schlafly). Apparently, according to her altered Republican reality, justices who undermine the Constitution by supporting a coup that installs a half-wit into the presidency aren’t “activists.” They are “literalists.” She has also demanded “abstinence only”education, opposed the distribution of contraceptives for the unmarried, and has dismissed the use of condoms as a means to check the spread of HIV.

Those other “accomplishments” aside, Schlafly will probably best be remembered as the demagogue who killed the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. through her "Stop ERA" campaign. Schlafly confidently declared that the ERA was not what feminists claimed (ensuring equal access to services, equal pay for equal work, fairness). According to Schlafly, it was really about making women susceptible to military drafts, unisex toilets, and (horrors!) lesbian marriage. The adoring media side-stepped the fact that Schlafly was a driven, highly-educated, career activist who rarely spent her days baking cookies or mending shirts. Instead, they accepted her self-created image as representing “normal moms” who opposed their own liberation. This could be a costume scarier than Freddie Krueger.

What I End Up With: Sarah Palin

Oh, sure, Sarah Palin is just as cynical as Schlafly. As much as Schlafly downplayed her own career success, Palin’s constant refrains of being “just a hockey mom” mask her steely determination to become a mayor, governor of Alaska, and now vice president. Like Schlafly, she also pretends to speak for the majority of women (even though polls suggest that only a tiny minority agree with her).

And, of course, she has mastered the Orwellian double speak of “hate is love” on gay issues. In her nationally televised debate with Joe Biden, she implied that she had “gay friends,” or at least she has friends who have gay friends. Palin tends to ramble incoherently, making it hard to pin down what she really meant when she said, “I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue.”

If we were in doubt about how she defines being “tolerant,” she clarified herself in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. "I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman," Palin stated, “I wish on a federal level that's where we would go because I don't support gay marriage.”

What a nice, tolerant friend she is! I don’t know about you, but I always like to have friends around who, based on their theology, think of me as a lesser person who deserves fewer rights than the majority of Americans.

While Palin has some frightful elements, I can’t help thinking she is a pale (Palin?) imitation of things we have seen many times before in this nation. If Schlafly was unique and masterful in her evil, Palin looks like a tired retread. She is just another arch-conservative woman who benefited from feminism, but seeks to dismantle those gains for others.

***

What I Aim For: Warren G. Harding

For decades, Warren G. Harding was most often selected as the worst president the nation had ever known (in competition with Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan). When Harding was elected in 1920, he already had a reputation of being a bit slow and woefully unprepared for the job before him. Though he died before he even finished his first time, his administration became renowned for its corruption, unchecked greed, and incompetence. He also initiated economic policies, via Herbert Hoover, that culminated in the U.S.’s Great Depression. By all accounts, a major loser. Even Harding admitted, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here." It would be a costume that only historians would appreciate.

What I End Up With: George W. Bush

Harding used to be considered the worst president, but I think that we can safely say that Bushie transformed himself into the most hated executive that this nation has ever known. Unlike Harding, he didn’t have the personal self-awareness to acknowledge his own ineptitude. Instead, he has unapologetically driven this country into moral and literal bankruptcy. If I appeared as Bush, even as a Halloween costume, I doubt that I could keep from vomiting.

***

What I Aim For: Gollum

Cold, soulless, greedy, erratic, self-interested, and mean: These are a few of the words that come to mind when thinking of Gollum. Okay, so he isn’t Yoda, but he has the potential to frighten. His internal dialogues and erratic behavior made Gollum unpredictable and dangerous to those who surrounded him.

What I End Up With: John McCain

Cold, soulless, greedy, erratic, self-interested, and mean: These are a few of the words that come to mind when thinking of John McCain. While I never (ever) agreed with McCain’s politics, he long ago lost whatever courtesy I might have given him when he so clearly cuddled up to Bushie to fuel his own ambition. Seriously misreading the direction of history, McCain banked on the idea that the nation would embrace the Bush administration’s mishandling of everything from the economy to wars. He was mistaken.

During this campaign, even he has appeared frightened by the bile and hatred that has bubbled up from some of his supporters. Nonetheless, he clearly will do anything to take power. McCain has veered from one direction to another in increasingly desperate attempts to appear legitimate. He went from arguing that there was nothing wrong with the economy to suspending his campaign because the economy was in serious crisis. Most recently he “guaranteed” that he would win the White House, despite being behind in most of the nation’s major polls. To make that guarantee, he is either completely out of touch with reality or he already knows that the Republicans are planing yet another coup that will undermine the will of the people. When he starts mumbling "my precious" on November 4, I think that we will all know the score.

Unlike Gollum, McCain has no magical ring or bastard Hobbitts to explain his personality disorders. Sadly, a McCain costume would be a more mundane form of anxious selfishness.

***

What I Aim For: GayProf

Few other bloggers have the cool and glamorous personality of GayProf. He is good looking, witty, and can deflect bullets with his magic bracelets! Who doesn't want to be GayProf? Surely his own comic book or television series is just around the corner.

What I End Up With: Kevin French

From the extremely short-lived cartoon Mission Hill, Kevin French would probably be the best I could do for a rendition of GayProf. Nerdy, self-conscious, and maybe a bit of a smug know-it-all, French would be a downer as a costume. Ask yourself this, though, is GayProf any less likely to know the details of dilithium mining in the Star Trek universe than Kevin French?

Obama's Fiesta Platter

HistoriAnn recently had a snarky critique of Barack Obama’s not-so-sudden swing to the political right. Maybe it was more snark than even I dare give out, but she had a point. Given that I never really imagined Obama as the “progressive candidate” that people claimed he was, this move does not surprise me (I was not, as I am sure you all remember, a Clinton supporter either. I would likely be as displeased with her had she been victorious – Remember: gravitas).

Certainly, though, I have been less than impressed by Obama’s ill-advised attempts to attract white conservatives to his cause. Moreover, I was literally made nauseous when Obama announced plans to continue the “faith-based” shit initiated by George W. Bush. Why? WHY would he support the faith-based initiatives when even Republicans didn’t really care for them? Actually, given that George W. Bush is the most hated president that we have ever had, why would any candidate endorse anything that he has done? If I were running for president, I wouldn't even admit to wearing the same brand of shoes as George Bush. Whatever the case, collapsing the distinctions between religion and government makes both worse.

As a gay man who has seen the religious right use their faith as an excuse to eliminate my basic civil rights, I am particularly horrified to see any politician wanting to give religion a bigger role in government (plus tax money). It made Obama look like he was wants to get into bed with the bigots. Yuck! And if he knew anything about their religious beliefs, Obama would know that they are strongly opposed to being in bed with him.



While I still intend to vote for Obama, support for such measures is making it difficult for me to do so. After that faith-based nonsense, it is only my fear of John McSame that keeps me in the Obama camp (for the time being). McSame is a bitter old man trying to buy power with his wife's beer money. The nation won't survive another four years of that horror. Push me a bit further, though, and I might not be able to stomach Obama's right wing tendencies either.

If I feel this way – Somebody who will support the Democrats for pragmatic reasons despite being much more on the left than they – I imagine that he is in danger of alienating a great number of the voters who would be most likely to bring him to the White House.

Pandering to those who would rather die than see him take power is a one-way road to doom. Talking to people who want him to succeed is a better choice.

Obama would be well served to remember that conservative white men are the minority in this nation. A real winning strategy for the Democrats (and I often wonder if they actually want to win elections) would involve getting out the majority of voters in this nation. Yep, the majority of voters are the combined strength of left-leaning racial minorities, women of all backgrounds, and the racially-diverse GLBTQ community. Do all of these groups vote 100 percent Democrat? Obviously, no. But majorities in all of those populations do -- which, when we combine them, means a majority of the nation does. If we all voted (or were allowed to vote honestly (which is a topic for another post)), we would easily defeat the right wing over and over again. Mysteriously, appealing to these groups, the core of the Democratic Party and the nation, seems to be Obama’s biggest failure right now.



This problem didn’t appear out of nowhere. Obama showed that he had serious problems during his never-ending primary with Hillary Clinton. He never could get the gays on his side, for instance, despite the fact that his and Clinton’s position on “queer issues” were virtually indistinguishable (and equally offensive). Even more telling (and even more foreboding) was his failure to attract Latino/a voters.

The media, of course, spent considerable time discussing the “Latino Community’s” support for Clinton. Yet, despite the many hours of wasted video tape that went into the issue, they never offered any significant reasons about why Latino/as preferred Clinton. That would have involved talking to actual Latino/as -- and the major networks really prefer not to do that.

Part of the answer, of course, is that there is no such thing as a monolithic “Latino Community” or consistent bloc of “Latino voters.” Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and the various other groups that fall under the racial umbrella of “Latino” have distinct histories and interests that result in different voting patterns. Cuban Americans have more often voted Republican, for instance, than other Latino groups (despite the fact that Republican victories have cut or eliminated things that are critically important to Cuban Americans like affirmative action or bilingual education (poor whites don't have a monopoly on voting against their own best interests)).

Any attempt to attract Latino/a voters requires a recognition that they have a diverse set of concerns. Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans in New Mexico, whose concerns center on a century-plus of U.S. imperialism in their homelands, might or might not connect their concerns with second-generation Mexican Americans or Colombian American voters. Economic class, likewise, can be as divisive within the “Latino Community” as in any other segment of the population.

So what is the key for a political victory among “Latino/as”? Hell if I know. If I did, I would rule this nation with an iron fist. Alas, though, I can only comment on how pitifully Obama has been in his efforts to this point.

I am surprised that Obama has found it so difficult to understand the complexity and diversity of Latino/as in this nation. His own personal history reveals a greater diversity within the “African American” community, another group that is often imagined to be flat and monolithic. Why has he been unable to transfer his personal experience and identity to his political message to minority groups?

Instead, Obama depends on the most broad statements possible. Recently I visited Obama’s campaign web page to see how he tailored his message for Latino/a voters. It turns out, he really can’t be bothered to do so. There is a paltry Spanish-language section that was seemingly last updated weeks ago (!). It offers a fraction of the information that is offered on the Anglophone site.



In addition to the pitiful Spanish-language section, there is also a separate English-language “Latino” section comparable to his sections for “women” and “environmentalists” (because politicians still prefer the notion of separate and easily distinguished marketing niches). For Latinos, his staff apparently could only come up with half-a-page of text to explain why Latino/as should support Obama’s campaign. Compare that half-of-a-page with the 12 pages of text devoted to "Americans Abroad" or the 7 pages of text under the "Women" section.

Much of that measly text aimed at Latinos, moreover, is entirely boiler-plate. If you deleted the word "Latino," you would have no idea that it is supposed to be addressed to a specific group.

In his “[Latino] Education” paragraph, Obama does not endorse bilingual education, address Latino/a dropout rates, discuss access to higher education, or the need for diversity in the curriculum. Instead, he promises a vague English-only policy as he will “hold schools accountable for teaching English-language learners.” English-language learners? Does he mean like George W. Bush?

Such calculated prose seems designed to cater to skittish white voters who fear a multilingual nation rather than actually providing real bilingual education (which, btw, would help white students as much as Latino/a students compete in the global market (if that is our goal)). He doesn't even come close to addressing Latino/as' real frustrations with their place in the U.S.-education system (the Latino dropout rate hovers around 20 percent -- Meaning that one-fifth of Latinos in the U.S. education system will not graduate from high school(a dropout rate three times higher than whites)).

Obama also touts his Health Care plan and his Iraq policy in the Latino section, but offers nothing specific about why Latinos would see those issues as important. In terms of Iraq, he might have mentioned a 2003 Pew Hispanic Center study that indicated that Latinos serving in the U.S. military are over-represented in the categories that get the most dangerous assignments (infantry, gun crews) -- and make up over 17.5 percent of the front lines despite being only 9.5 percent of the enlisted forces. Or he could have even noted a study that showed that nearly half of all Latino voters have somebody close currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

As for health care? “You Latino people get sick, right?," the site might as well say, "I mean, we aren’t certain about that as the market research hasn’t come back. But we are pretty sure that you get sick. If you elect Obama you will be marginally less likely to be completely devoid of health insurance.”

Finally, Obama offers vague wording about immigration that promises to fix “our broken immigration system” and “enforce our laws" and "reaffirms our heritage as a nation of immigrants.” The rabidly xenophobic Lou Dobbs could just as easily support that empty statement as Latino/a voters. Hell, Lou Dobbs could have written that statement.

Here is a hint to the Obama campaign people: When the words “fix” “immigrant” and “problem” appear in close proximity to each other, Latino/as are almost always left with the assumption that this is going to involve a program of racial profiling and police harassment regardless of citizenship status. Why? Because that has been the history of such rhetoric in this nation for the past 160 years. It doesn’t help matters that Obama signed onto the same immigration bill as John McSame.

Now, I am not naïve. I understand that modern politics is about building as vague a message as possible to attract the greatest number of voters. In the case of Latino/as, though, I get the impression that Obama isn’t even trying. This is supremely foolish.

Latino voters could potentially swing a number of states, including places like Michigan and Ohio (The Mexican/Mexican American section of Detroit, for instance, is one of the few places in that urban wasteland that has experienced economic growth). Instead, Obama seems content to either ignore Latino/as entirely or to depend on crude stereotypes and assumptions.

Let’s take a look, for example, at the campaign ad that he ran during the Texas campaign:



Really? Mariachi singers? Really? For real, that is all that Obama came up with for tejano voters? Could he have aimed for a bigger stereotype? Was Speedy Gonzales unavailable that day? Did the Frito Bandito declare in favor of Clinton?

Who on the Obama campaign decided to get the costumed mariachi singers? Alas, it wouldn’t totally surprise me if some Latino in his campaign came up with this idea, but they should be fired for doing so.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like mariachi music a great deal. It is just one of many musical genres unique to the Mexican-American community. Trotting out costumed mariachi singers, however, raise red flags when they are deployed by somebody who obviously has no connection with Mexicans/Mexican Americans. Mariachi singers suggest that Obama thinks very little about Latino/as beyond stereotypes. Tell me, how much different was that Obama ad verses a recent Taco-Bell campaign?



Was Obama really surprised that Mexican Americans rejected such ploys? Sorry, Barack, we've been served those same old beans and cheese since ¡Viva Kennedy! in 1960. We expect more.

If Obama really is the “savior” candidate that his self-created hype promises, I want to see a new vision of the United States from him. A Democrat who tries to sound like a Republican is neither progressive nor likely to enter the White House. A Democrat who sounds like he spent more than two seconds thinking about the diversity of this nation could make me feel a lot better about having to vote for him.

School's Out for Summer

Summer is upon us. Well, not technically – That won’t officially start until June 21. Given that my life is dictated by the nine month academic calendar rather than the actual calendar, it has already started for me. Screw the solstice.

This leads to my annual list of things that I must accomplish in the coming months. Here are items that must be done by September 2:

* Complete the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Yeah, this has been on my list consistently. This time, though, I really mean it.

* Ruthlessly exploit friends and colleagues by having them proofread drafts of the Never Ending Research Project of Doom.

* Attend an all-day meeting to discuss matters deemed critical for the direction of my academic department.

* Struggle not to slit my wrists out of boredom while attending an all-day meeting to discuss matters deemed critical for the direction of my academic department.

* Single-handedly heal the wounds of the Democratic Party once they finally decide on a candidate. The key will be baking enough delicious Bundt cake for everybody.

* Lose eight pounds. I am at that awkward stage where my regular clothes are a tad tight, but my fat clothes are still too large.

* Take my Honda Civic for much needed service. It’s odd that at the point that I finally paid it off, I decided to see if I could destroy it by not bothering to get its oil changed.

* Quash my environmentally-dubious desire to purchase the insanely hot Dodge Challenger. I am not ashamed to say that I would probably have sex with that car. I would do it on camera too as long as I could keep the car afterwards.



* Vigorously shake working-class whites until they realize that the Republican Party is their worst enemy.

* Spend ample time in the sun to obtain a much needed tan and to stave off rickets.

* Invent a new cocktail and name it the Gravitas.

* Travel to New Mexico for research purposes.

* Seek medical treatment for guaranteed heat stroke while in New Mexico.

* Enjoy refreshing TaB cola.

* Enjoy even more refreshing tequila.



* Travel to Philadelphia and New Jersey for an event on my mother’s side of my family.

* Contemplate just how much worse traveling by air will become if we allow Delta and Northwest Airlines to merge. Do we even remember that this nation once had anti-trust laws?

* Solve the mystery at Lilac Inn.

* Use my federal tax stimulus check to buy a single week’s worth of gasoline.

* Update CoG more often (Unlikely if I want to accomplish the first thing on this list).

* Remind the nation that allowing John McCain to assume the presidency would be to install somebody who has no moral conscious; enjoys war as a pastime; voted against the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.; has promised to continue the disastrous economic policies of the Bush presidency; and smells like Bengay.


* Watch films that center on an alcoholic industrialist with a metal suit; a cowled misanthrope with abandonment issues; and an aged archeologist who probably also smells like Bengay at this point.

* Wonder aloud about why Gwyneth Paltrow has a screen career. Conclude that it has to do with the U.S.’s incredibly low standards for acting.

* Change my currency into something less likely to lose its value than the U.S. dollar – Like the Colombian peso.

* Purchase a new bed and/or couch – Depending on whether I imagine that I will have more house guests or overnight guests.

* Laugh at the fact that the media/government is trying to spin the loss of jobs in the economy as a sign of growth. Hey, we didn’t shed as many jobs as we expected, so things are looking up. That’s a great strategy that I am going to start using with my credit card companies. Hey, my check wasn’t nearly as late as I thought that it would be, so, really, we are ahead.

* Completely redesign the syllabus for one of my fall classes (Unlikely if I want to accomplish the first thing on this list).

* Wrestle control of the Federal Reserve Board away from the incompetent and dangerous Ben S. Bernanke and the other conservative white men who currently staff it (Yep, all conservative white men on the Fed – Nobody else seems to have noticed that).

* Spend some quality time playing with my Mego Wonder Woman doll.



* Convince my friends that spending quality time playing with my Mego Wonder Woman doll is not evidence of the long anticipated mental breakdown.

* Celebrate the genius of Dolly Parton.

* Be grateful to Guadalupe that I don’t have to move this year (unlike the previous three years).

* Start a movement to finally dump the 1789 Constitution and replace it with a parliamentary form of government for the U.S. Why do we cling to a document that stated that some individuals only count for three-fifths of a person? Why do we tolerate a system where one person, one vote is not the standard? We have the technology to rebuild it. We can make it better, stronger, faster.

GayProf Loses His Zen

The semester is rapidly coming to an end. The one good thing about returning to work so early in January is that I had my last final April 17. Now it is just the grading.

Of course, the end also means that I have been (even more) crazy busy over the past few weeks. If I have to attend one more meeting, I might be sentenced to Arkham Asylum. Seriously, if you see GayProf in unflattering clown makeup, head in the other direction.

I think that I underestimated my frazzled nerves until I lost my shit late last week. Normally it takes a great deal for me to lose my temper. Most times I construe anger as a waste of emotion. Trying to cross the street, however, sent me over the edge.

You see, Big Midwestern University merges entirely with Midwestern Funky Town. Major streets bisect the campus. At least one of these roads clearly has too much pedestrian traffic competing with motor traffic. In my mind, it should be closed to cars altogether.

Nobody, alas, has decided to make me a city planner. As a result, I have to play full-scale Frogger to get to my office in the morning. Students drive too fast and refuse to stop at crosswalks (though motorists are legally required to yield to pedestrians or face a $130 fine (I looked it up)).

Most of the time I am merely frustrated by drivers’ lack of civility. Last week went beyond the pale. Some student, driving an oversized gas-guzzler, literally refused to stop at the cross walk that was filled with people. He forced all of us who were already in the middle of the road to get out of his way or be run over. Then he had the nerve to flip us off for being in his way. I might have responded with a less than scholarly vocabulary or intonation.




Being prone to hyperbole, I immediately concluded that he represented everything that was wrong with the United States. Our selfish emphasis on the “individual” encourages Americans to think that they are right all the time, even when they are clearly wrong. Both as individuals and as a nation, we are loathe to consider that our particular needs might not be the most important.

This doesn’t just come out through incidents of near vehicular manslaughter. Take, for example, the tempest that surrounded an Absolut Vodka advertisement. To peddle their booze, the company capitalized on a utopian vision of the world where U.S. imperialism had been checked in the nineteenth century. Though the ad never circulated in the U.S., Absolut was flooded with irate mail from U.S. citizens. One angry writer noted that he had poured all his vodka down the drain (N.B. to protesters: Companies don’t suffer if you dispose of a product after you already paid for it. Whether or not you actually consume your purchase is fairly immaterial to them as long as they got their money in the first place).



Angry letter writers couldn’t entertain the idea that the U.S. might have been wrong to wage war on a neighboring republic for no other reason than an ambition for territory. They were also clearly unprepared to consider that there is a residual anger and resentment towards the United States for that war (which deprived Mexico of half of its territory, left it bankrupt, and opened the door for future invasions from other nations).

Don’t get me wrong. I am not endorsing the ad per se. After all, Absolut created it as a crass capitalistic attempt to profit from Mexico's legitimate frustration with U.S. imperialism. Rather, I am concerned that many (most?) people in this nation are unable or unwilling to admit that the nation’s history is filled with immoral decisions that we should regret. The fact that an ad for a mid-tier vodka can call the nation out on its hubris should concern us.

It is much the same thinking that resulted in the criticism of Barack Obama last weekend. He only spoke the truth (however imperfectly that he delivered it). The white working class has been voting against their own economic interests since the 1980s. Republicans have depended upon messages of fear (You need guns, and lots of them) and hatred (Gays will destroy civilization as we know it. Mexicans are our enemy.). Obama probably didn’t realize that it was a secret that the Republican party had been using the religious right to satisfy their own agendas.

Much of the response to Obama’s comments have centered around his supposed audacity to suggest that these voters were wrong and had the wrong priorities. Indeed, both Clinton and McCain suggested that Obama was “out of touch.”

To my mind, it is the U.S. voters who have been out of touch. From human rights, economics, and environmentalism, the U.S. has been on the wrong side of every issue for the past seven years. This isn’t just the fault of the Bush administration, either. Though only 5 percent of the world’s population, we consume 25 percent of its natural resources. How has the U.S. population responded in the face of both an economic and environmental melt down? Shockingly, U.S. citizens have decided that we should have a baby boom. It was something that I had suspected based on first-hand anecdotes, but was confirmed this past fall with statistics. Yes, the U.S. is totally out of step with every other industrial nation. Just how selfish are we? How depraved have we become that we think nothing of compounding the world's overpopulation? Is there any discussion about population control (beyond this blog)? Is anybody willing to entertain the notion that having more than one child is an immoral and selfish decision?



The election of either Obama or Clinton will not magically solve the problems facing this nation. The best that we could hope for from either is that they will not actively impede the reshaping of our society.

Instead of celebrating the cult of personality around these two figures, we need to alter the conversation in this nation. Rather than a nation driven by self-centered individualism, we need to start thinking as a community. We need to take seriously the responsibilities of citizenship, not just the rights of citizenship. We also have to be willing to acknowledge that just because we made a decision doesn't mean that it was the right one. Don’t run me over, man.

For What It's Worth

This past weekend I hosted my long-threatened charity cocktail party for the Midwestern Funky Town queer youth center. The attendance was a bit smaller than I anticipated (some of my extended entourage were out of town at an academic conference), but it still generated a reasonable sum of money for the group.

To be honest, that is the type of volunteer work that I can really get behind. More public service should revolve around drinking (though I am contemplating joining VUBOQ’s liver-resting April).

Even without the drinking, it gave me opportunity to break out my fabled Bewitched-style warming tray. What self-respecting host(ess) doesn’t have one?



Given that I am in charitable mood, I decided that it was time for me to solve many of the nation’s other problems. I am generous like that – a giver, if you will. Here are the simple solutions to many of our greatest challenges:

The Housing Crisis: The value of houses is falling dramatically across the nation. This might be a crazy first idea, but how about a moratorium on building new shit? Throughout the Midwest, there are tons of empty homes and even giant skyscrapers. Driving through Detroit is much like journeying to a future dystopia. Amazing twenty-story buildings (with stunning Beaux-Arts architecture) sit empty. One expects to see the Ωmega Man lurking about.



In the meantime, wild building is occurring in areas of the nation that literally lack the natural resources to support the population growth. People who are moving to Phoenix, you realize that it is a desert, right? By desert, I mean there is no water -- Like, not at all. Shouldn't that be a sign that a city of 1.5 million is a bad, bad idea? (Stay out of New Mexico – It’s not for you).

Let’s treat the nation like the spoiled child that it is – No new toys until you finish playing with the ones that you already got. No new homes, office building, hotels, or other buildings until we have 100 percent occupancy on the stuff that we already got. If people need a house or an office, they can pay to remodel existing properties in the Midwest. This will keep the construction industry busy for years to come.

The Tumbling Value of the U.S. Dollar: The value of the dollar (or, as I like to refer to it, the U.S. peso) has fallen to all time lows compared to the euro, British pound, the yen, and even the Canadian dollar (!). It’s just another thing that Republican voters (and those who stayed home) created in 2004.

I ain’t no economist, but it seems like the Federal Reserve’s one-step catch-all solution of lowering interest rates is nothing but crap. Lowering interest is flooding the market with money, which leads to inflation, which leads to making the problem worse and devaluing the dollar even more. Where did Ben Bernanke get his degree in economics? An on-line course? A cereal box?

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I think the U.S. dollar could use some product re-branding. It did wonders for Kentucky Fried Chicken when they renamed themselves KFC. It’s the same old grease and slaw, but people clearly don’t think about the “fried” bit anymore (or the blocked aortas).

Let’s relaunch the U.S. Dollar under a new name, like the U.S. Slammer. That will make our currency more hip and at least sound powerful. Imagine a sales clerk telling you that your total was “three slammers” rather than three dollars.

Of course, the re-branding would also require a redesign of our currency. Aren’t we tired of dead, straight white men on the face of our money? I have always been in favor of this:



The United States’s Difficult Relationship with Iran: According to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there are no gays in Iran. Well, no wonder Iran is so angry with the U.S.! We thought that it had to do with our blanket imperialism and unilateral military actions in the region. It turns out that the real problem is that we have been hoarding all the gays for ourselves. That’s awfully selfish of the U.S. Why, West Hollywood has a bumper crop of gays this year. Clearly it’s time to send some of them into Iran and brighten up the place. Gay sex, after all, makes everybody happy.



The Democratic Nomination: Obama or Clinton? To listen to the followers of each candidate, one would think that the choice was between eternal salvation or a new definition of pain and suffering as we are slowly digested over a thousand years. For my part, I really don’t see all that dramatic of a difference between the candidates (Though Obama’s speech on race plus his endorsement by Bill Richardson has nudged me toward his corner in recent weeks).

Wake up, people. Neither is great on gay issues, immigration, or even basic economic policies (All of my favorite issues). The best we can hope for is that they will be quasi-reasonable and work with those of us who are interested in actual social-justice issues (rather than the aforementioned hyperbole and rhetoric).

In my mind, either one is vastly preferably to McCain and a huge improvement over the incompetent moron in office today. Hell, my cat is more competent than the moron in office today (and darn cute).

All the same, the Democratic Party is divided. Even some of my own family members are threatening to boycott the 2008 election if their chosen candidate doesn’t win the primary. That’s just crazy talk.

I am tired of the hyperbole that has been flying around from both sides of this election. People who fall for the cult of personality in politics make me nervous. It also distracts them from worshiping their true savior: Me.

There is only one solution to this mess: Appoint Laura Roslin to be president in 2008. I mean, she doesn’t feel the need to be elected (always coming into office through the back door), but she does a hell of a job all the same. Trust me, fighting off Cylons is going to be a piece of cake compared to repairing the damage created by eight years of Bush and Cheney.



The Current Administration: Jail time for everybody.

GayProf's Limited Vote

Up until this point, I have largely avoided writing about the various presidential candidates. Acknowledging them only encourages them. Alas, tomorrow my state has its primary.

Your ol’friend GayProf feels quite frustrated by his options in the primary. You see, officials in my state moved up the date of their primary because they desired to be relevant. Silly Midwest – The rusting factories and crushing unemployment should have long ago indicated that the empire has abandoned you.

The Democratic Party responded by “punishing” my state for moving up its primary. My state's delegates will not be permitted to participate at the Democratic convention. Moreover, many of the top Democratic candidates refused to put themselves on my state's ballot.

So, I am left with the option of casting a vote, which has already been explicitly stated won’t count, for a candidate for whom I don’t want to vote. Way to empower the people, Democrats! You suck.

The Democratic Party has decided that I, as a voter, need not weigh in on the decision between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton . Nope – Obama isn’t even on the ballot (which won't be counted anyway). I can vote for Clinton, however (but it won't count).

Maybe I am just bitter because my choice for the Democratic Party was already out of the race (not that I could have voted for him anyway because, guess what?, not on the ballot in my state). Who was that? Bill Richardson. A Latino from New Mexico who, despite one or two major gaffs, has a basically good track record on gay issues? Yeah, it was a real mystery who I would have supported.

Think I might solve my voting problem by writing in my selected candidate? Nope. The rules for write-in candidates for the primary in my state are extremely narrow, meaning my vote would simply be discarded instantly (rather than later by the Democratic Party).

My state has offered that I could vote in the Republican Primary instead. Gee, thanks. I would rather eat a bowl of hot glass than vote for any of the candidates in the Republican Party – under any circumstances.

Those who think McCain is an “independent thinker” or a person of principles, let me just remind you of this:



Let's see what eight years of Republican mismanagement and greed have given us: the nation’s economy is in shambles, we are mired in an unwinnable war, the military is over extended, and our global reputation shot. As far as I am concerned, there shouldn’t even be a Republican Party. Running for President? The Republican Party doesn't deserve to field a candidate as city dog catcher.

Personally, I think that anybody who voted Republican in 2004 owes me cash money. Not only did they legitimate a coup, but they have really lowered each person's standard of living. Their greed or hatred (whichever pitiful motive they had for voting Republican) has cost this nation, and us as individuals, a great deal. Now it's time for them to pay up.

Before the Republicans took over, my U.S. dollar used to be worth €1.27. Today, one U.S. dollar is worth €0.67. By my calculations, therefore, the dumbasses who voted Republican owe me around $38,400. I would prefer, though, if they paid that to me in Euros. I am not sure those dollars are going to be around much longer.

If they aren’t willing to give me cash, they could always pay me in gasoline. In 2000, it was considered unusually high to pay $1.43/gallon. Now I am lucky if I find someplace to fill up for under $3.00. Bush’s oil cronies, on a completely unrelated matter, have been reporting record profits every year that he has been in office.

When I drive up to the local Shell station, there should be a Republican voter there in overalls waiting to fill my tank. And, just because of that whole Larry Craig nonsense, they should wash my windshield too.

We should start requiring anybody who wants to vote Republican to bring their Mastercharge card with them to the polls. You want to trash the nation because of your xenophobia? Okay – but it’s gonna cost you. You think that you have the right to prevent two men from getting married? Alright, but we are going to need a cashier’s check from your local bank. Voting for Huckabee? I hope you have a gold card.

Nobody Wins if Everybody Loses

After having dinner at Neighbor Girl’s (a.k.a. VUBOQ’s Superfantasic Cuz (I thought it makes more sense for her to be defined by her relationship to me for this blog)) house the other evening, I came home to watch Logo’s Forum for the Democratic Presidential Candidates. Up until this point, I have largely avoided coverage of the candidates because I think that it is too damn early to be spending this amount of time and attention on them. The news, instead, could be covering the misdeeds and illegal activities of our current administration. My feeling was that we should only start listening to other people who want to be in the White House when the current occupant is in jail.

Given that the Logo forum was a historic moment when presidential candidates would address a nation-wide GLBT audience, I decided it was necessary to tune into it. At the very least, I figured that I might be asked questions about it when I start teaching the history of sexuality again in the fall.

My fellow Americans, our nation’s leaders are a feeble crew. None of the candidates surprised me with their answers. Well, at least none of them surprised me in a positive way. We will deal with the train wreck that was Bill Richardson in a moment.

My dismay came in the following days when the media and others authoritatively declared a “winner” for the evening (alternately between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton). What did they say that actually supported the queer community? How did a position of “I won’t actively harass you and I sometimes think that you are almost human” become a “win” for the queer community? To my mind, nobody won that forum – and queers really lost.

Here, in a nut shell, was the message that each candidate delivered to the queer community and my assessment:

Barack Obama: I am not afraid to talk about gay people even when I am not at a gay-specific event! I also understand the pain of the gay community because I am black, which is like being gay, but really totally different. That's why I don't really support equal rights for you queers.

Even when discussing homophobia within the black community, Obama still seemed to imagine queers as mostly outsiders. Further, Obama treated queer folk as if they had just now started fighting for civil rights rather than acknowledging the half century (and more!) of fights that have transpired. At one point, it seemed like he wanted to give lessons to the queer community about how to pursue social justice. We should not be made to feel like we should apologize for comparisons to other civil rights movements. Queer folk have been involved in all the major civil rights movements of the past century. We are not the politically naïve ones, Barack.

John Edwards: Don’t worry, I am really comfortable around gay people, especially when they are writing checks for my campaign. Also, let me say that I made a mistake when I said that I opposed same-sex marriage on religious grounds. Religion has no role in government. Now I am opposed to same-sex marriage for no apparent reason at all.

All I wondered is why Elizabeth Edwards isn’t running for president instead of him.

Dennis J. Kucinich: I bring you peace and love.

I always want to support Kucinich based on the issues, but why must he always make himself look crazy? This time he seemed to be a doing a parody of Mr. Burns after his life extension treatments:

Mike Gravel: I can’t believe queer people are dumb enough to support Clinton or Obama. Actual quote: “They’re playing it safe. They’re not going to lose any votes about not supporting gay marriage. It’s costing us votes because I do support it. I don’t care. I don’t want those votes.”

Gravel delivered perhaps the most honest appraisal of the entire evening. After discussing the fact that he was not originally going to be a guest despite his vocal support for queer issues, he wondered aloud about why the queer community was busy falling over themselves for people like Clinton and Obama when they offer only meek support for queer rights. It is likely, however, that nobody will really remember him anyway (or they will confuse him with that other Alaska guy who said the internet was a bunch of tubes).

Bill Richardson: I have done things for gay people in New Mexico and will do what I think is possible for them in the White House (which isn’t much). I understand the pain of the gay community because I am Latino, which is like being gay, but totally different. Sexuality is a choice. . . Or maybe it’s not. How should I know? I am no “scientist.”

It has been a long time since I have actually cringed because of a political figure talking on t.v. It hurt all the more to come from Bill – In truth, he has been a pretty good governor of my beloved New Mexico. He also really does have the most experience of all the candidates out there. So, why did he look so inept? It might have been nice if he at least put up the pretense of having thought about GLBT issues before stepping on the stage.

Until that debacle, Richardson had been my choice. He was Latino. He was Congressional Representative and Governor of New Mexico. He seemed good on the gays. That was a horrible disillusionment. Now I am back to my GayProf in ‘08 platform.

Hillary Clinton: I will say almost anything at this moment to get your vote and money, except actually pledge to fight for real equality. Hey – the best that I can do is try to prevent you people from being shoved into a concentration camp. You whiny little bitches should be glad that I don’t support that. Now, if you will excuse me, Joe Solomonese and I are going to get back into bed together. He is my poodle, don’t you know?

Clinton was just sleazy.

I firmly believe in voting based on reality. When the presidential election rolls around in 2008 and we are facing a horrid right-wing candidate (and all the players on the field are horrid), it is a strong bet that I will support the Democratic candidate. Right now, though, messing with a left third party for the presidency is short sighted and gives the advantage to individuals like George W. Bush.

At this stage, however, it is not time for queer people to make those concessions. I understand why Clinton and Obama are taking the positions that they are taking. For them, it is about calculating their best chance to win. They figure the gays will support them anyway, so why bother having a principled position on equality?

That simply isn’t good enough. To my mind, the queer community is still so bowled over that anybody famous bothers to mention our names that we consider that more important than fighting for our actual rights. Queer people are bombarded by messages that we have no value and are causing more problems for the nation than we are worth. It’s no wonder then that some people will latch onto the first person who says, “Hey, I don’t totally hate you (even if I vomit a little when I think about what you do in the bedroom).”

What became clear from the forum is that the Democratic candidates want queer votes and really, really want queer money, but are not interested in pursuing a campaign that actually acknowledges our rights as citizens. We don’t have to be grateful for the measly crumbs offered to us by people like Clinton and Obama. Nor do we have to tolerate their lack of knowledge about history (not “our” history as queer people, but the actual history of the United States). Just because the notion of queer rights is new to them doesn’t mean it’s new to the world.

First of all, queer people were critically important to both the African American and Latino civil rights movements. It’s only historical amnesia that has prevented people from discussing this more often.



Likewise, the fight for queer rights has not just benefited queer people. It goes without saying, for instance, that queer activists have been critical to the AIDS crisis. Heterosexuals who are affected by this disease owe a lot to gay men for demanding research and money to fight it.

Even less discussed, though, are the real ways that queer activism has changed ideas about sexuality and gender in this nation. Queer activists have started with the assumption that sexuality is a vitally important part of all humans' daily lives. They fought against the notion of singular “normal” sex life in favor of the freedom for all adults to pursue their own unique desires.

I do not, therefore, accept any presidential candidate who claims that my basic rights must be traded because the majority of Americans aren’t ready to grant them to me. I don’t give a fuck about offending “majoritarian sensibilities.” The majority has always resisted recognizing the rights of minorities in this nation.

Electing somebody who is willing to trade our rights because the majority of Americans don’t think we deserve any maintains the homophobia (and racism and sexism) that defines modern U.S. society. If we don’t respect our own rights enough to call Clinton, Obama, and the whole crew homophobic and hollow, then we have lost regardless of who enters the White House in 2009.

Having Democratic Candidates appear on gay television to talk at us for an hour is not a win. Having Democratic Candidates listen to us for an hour would have been.