June 28, 2006

20 years ago today the most important person in my life, my friend Staci, committed suicide. In two days it will be the 6th anniversary of the death of my friend Shane, Maggie’s first husband and Cole’s Daddy. I get especially sensitive to Cole during this time, because I go back to the promise I made Shane that I would always look after and take care of him and of Maggie. This whole month is always a wierd, haunted thing for me, especially this year given the fact that it was just last summer around this time that I lost two cousins I grew up with and lived childhood through. My cousin Lynn died last summer after a life-long, excruciating battle with Hemophilia and a valiant 10 year fight against AIDS. My cousin Robb died when the car he was driving was run over and subsequently crushed by a tractor trailer at 70 MPH on a highway, killing him instantly or so they say. From the look of the car, I cannot imagine how he could have lived longer than that after the impact. Their deaths, as well as that of my oldest Aunt, were all within the space of a month and a half.

I’ve been thinking a lot about all of them lately, and this year instead of the usual melancholiness that comes I am also feeling a lot of bitterness and anger. Mostly because I feel cheated and ripped off. They should all be here, they should all be here to know and love D and support him as much as they supported me. They should be here for when I’m going through something and go through it with me. We should all be spending Sunday dinner together and sharing bottles of good red wine, we should be watching the kids all playing together and experiencing them being like we used to be. We should have had more time together.

I’m sure that all of this stuff weighing on me right now is playing part into why I feel so edgy and out of sorts. I didn’t really think about it until just now, but it makes perfect sense. Actually, I always do this. I start being a cranky, grizzled bastard and before I even know it BOOM! - I remember what’s around the corner. I’ll want to be with my family and friends, and then in the blink of an eye I want to be completely alone. I want to go somewhere and do something, then a second later I don’t want to do anything at all. Things that normally just roll right off of me are setting me off and getting under my skin in a bad way. Part of that is not having my pictures. I have pictures of Shane and of Robb, Mama has pictures of Lynn but I have no pictures of Staci. There is a picture of her (my favorite picture of her, as a matter of fact - I dressed her for it) on her grave marker. I might go to the cemetery and take a picture of it and see if I cannot Photoshop it or something.

All of these things put me in a frame of mind where I just miss the people I’ve lost (and there are many more I haven’t even mentioned) and it makes me difficult to suffer I’m sure. This is the only time of the year that I really allow the part of me that feels especially empty to be indulged and given attention. Because if I allowed it to be open for very long, I’d be swallowed by the sadnesses that come home to roost in me during the summer and I’d stop being me. I like being me, I don’t want to be anyone else and I certainly don’t want to be the self destructive mess I used to be. It works for me to allot a particular time to feel things I can only stand to feel in small doses. At least that way I can compartmentalize it later and continue on doing the things I have to do to get by. You cannot be down all of the time, at a certain point you have to be responsible for owning your feelings and deciding that even though you may not want to, you may not feel like it, you have to get your ass up and get moving.

This weekend the family leaves for vacation and I go to spend the majority of the week with D. Tomorrow I’m tuning the bikes up and getting them ready for a bike trip on the riverwalk this weekend. I’m going to be very meditative and I’m going to do some yoga and
sit quietly by the river. I’m going to wake up and have coffee and remind myself that in spite of everything I feel weighing on me, I have a fantastic life full of love and acceptance and respect, honor and support and laughter, and I’ll change the things I miss into the things I don’t have to miss because they’re all around me, all the time, and they need me to be a better and whole me.

I am about to take Avery and put her down for a nap, then I’m going to make myself a very indulgent cup of Sweet Dreams with lavender honey and get my shit together for today. Maggie called to inform me that in lieu of cooking dinner, we’re going to eat sushi until we go blind, which is always the best of antidepressants.

June 30, 2006

I want to feel better tomorrow, somehow unburdened by all of this. I’ve felt completely introverted and disconnected all day long. Vacation begins tomorrow, it’s been a long time coming. Much unproductive late sleeping and napping will occur.

Oy, the level of political correctness here borders on laughable. Sticks and stones, people - sticks and stones.

Cut-and-Run Liberal, and Proud of It

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted June 21, 2006.

Karl Rove is right when he calls us ‘cut-and-run liberals.’ As you will see, the list of things we want to cut and run from is a long one.

I want to be perfectly clear about this. We liberals really do want to cut and run.

I admit it. We are cut-and-run liberals, just as Karl Rove alleges. More than that, I am proud of it and encourage more Americans to join us.

We are liberals/progressives and, damn it, we want to cut and run.

We want to cut and run from the borrow and spend, borrow and spend economics of the GOP that have piled an additional $4 trillion in debt onto our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We want to cut and run from the unholy alliance between the GOP and energy companies that has left us at the mercy of a bunch of medieval Islamic tribal leaders who run their own countries like feudal states and treat their own people — especially their women — worse than Americans treat farm animals.

We want to cut and run from a national health care system designed by and for giant health care and pharmaceutical interests, that enriches a few while leaving 45 million Americans without affordable health insurance.

We want to cut and run from a government that, over the past six years, has become not only increasingly closed to public scrutiny and accountability, but overtly hostile and suspicious of citizens who insist on either.

We want to cut and run from a style of governance that not only plays on fear and petty prejudices, but cultivates and exploits them for cheap political gain. From the cynical, dishonest, purposeful pitting of majority populations against minority groups on the grounds that they don’t share “American values,” and later denying responsibility for the entirely predictable destructive consequences of those tactics.

We want to cut and run from policies that view science and scientists as adversaries whose findings must sometimes be suppressed, while embracing, even endorsing, religious dogmas that have no basis in fact whatsoever.

We want to cut and run from GOP economic polices that have handed the already wealthy a couple of trillion dollars in tax cuts while leaving working Americans’ payroll tax virtually untouched.

We want to cut and run from GOP economics that argue — with a straight face — that the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour should not be raised to a still unlivable $7.25 an hour because doing so would “hurt low-wage workers.”

We want to cut and run from policies that scoff at mandating substantially higher fuel mileage standards, even as the fossil fuels run out and the effects of global warming become more apparent with each passing day.

We want to cut and run from policies that justify turning “the land of the free and home of the brave” into a place where none of us can any longer feel sure that the government isn’t listening to our private phone calls, reading our emails or keeping an eye on us from a pole-mounted camera on the corner.

We want to cut and run from an administration that wraps inconvenient truths in the opaque blanket of national security while justifying selective disclosure of classified information for purely political reasons — such as the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and the now discredited disclosures that Iraq tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.

We want to cut and run from policies that allow religious extremists to determine what medical procedures or family planning medications women will be allowed access to.

We want to cut and run from policies that allow ou
r government to decide which American citizens will be allowed to enter into legally recognized, committed relationships, and which will be banned by law from doing so.

We want to cut and run from policies that encourage counseling and treatment for Americans suffering from alcohol addiction, but incarceration for those suffering drug addiction.

We want to cut and run from cynically selective policies that treat some dictators as friends of America and others as enemies requiring a deadly dose of regime change.

We want to cut and run from policies that are increasingly militarizing entirely domestic matters, such as internal terrorist threats, border control and domestic law enforcement, particularly the gathering of intelligence on political groups and movements.

We want to cut and run from policies that allow industries government is supposed to regulate for the public good to write the very rules under which they will be regulated.

Do we want to cut and run from Iraq? I wish the hell we could. But that fat is already in the fire. Liberals understand we can’t cut and run from Iraq. But whose fault is it that we’re stuck there now? Not ours, that’s for sure. We would like to see U.S. troops leave Iraq as soon as possible — but not in a way that would make matters worse for ordinary Iraqis than our invasion already has.

In the meantime, we are not about to let the very neocons who got us into that mess shift the blame onto liberals who oppose the war. You guys started it, and that dead chicken is hanging around your necks, not ours. So, Karl, stop the blame-shifting and wear it like a man.

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including “Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans,” which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

The Hitler vs. Coulter Quiz - I got 9 correct.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we will not be attending Pride this year. Next year, sure - but you cannot always do the things you want to do. I still think it is important, and will always stand in support of the communal sense of unification it brings myself and others. Which brings me to the point of this post.

I’ve written before on the importance of marching in a Pride parade at least once in a lifetime. I’ve written on Gay Pride & Gay Shame (see “Be Who You Know You Are” [link]), and extensively on activism (see “That’s MISTER Faggot to you… ” [link] -wow, 804 comments, a record!). There’s other fun stuff, like “12 Reasons Why Gay People Should Not Be Allowed To Get Married” [link] and “A Questionnaire For All You Heterosexuals” [link]. Some is meant to be very tongue-in-cheek, like “The New & Improved Homosexual Agenda”, [link]. That was just too much fun. I repost these links because I want people to understand where I’m coming from, essentially.

I march to remember and honor those fierce queens who paved a way for me to be unafraid and speak my mind by picking up a brick at Stonewall, those who really lived life and were unapologetic for who they knew they were and taught me to be a shameless faggot without the bullshit posturing. I march so that those who feel isolated and disconnected and otherwise alone in this world will hopefully feel those things slightly less. I march for those who would be there with me, were it not for the choices and actions of others who live now with bloodied hands. I march for Bill Clayton Matthew Shepard, Barry Winchell, Brandon Teena, Harvey Milk, Gwen Araujo, Travis, Danny Overstreet, Billy Jack Gaither, JR Warren, Tyra Hunter, the hundreds of thousands of others. I march for the hope of a resonant understanding of transgendered people and gender issues in general, so that they will one day be societal nonissues. I march for marriage equality, so that we may all have a choice to follow our hearts. I march for those who have no choice and would rather be seen dead than different. I march in support of common sense and logic. I march because I’m pissed off and want to fight fire
with fire. I march because it is the best way I can set an example for (and to inspire) those too frightened to stand up and be heard. I march because there are still good people in the world, in spite of the odds. I march because if nothing else, someone somewhere needs me to march in solidarity, even if they don’t know me.

I march because I will not be complacent, I will not be told what to think, how to feel, what to say, who to be, or how to appear. That’s the whole point. I march to remain unafraid, because FUCK “THEM”.

Be who you know you are. Link to this post at will.

The Swiftboating of John Murtha. Wonder how long before the usual suspects start frothing over this one. Should we start a betting pool, maybe? Assrocket, Pigboy, Hypocritical Anchor Baby Slag, Ol’ Slothhands, or maybe even the Brunette Coulter? Or will Faux News beat them all to the gravy boat?

I cannot wait, I really can’t. Murtha is the Shaft of the House, he’ll kick your freeper asses and I’ll be dying laughing when he does it, too.

One of the most inspiriing things I’ve ever read is now up on Alternet. It’s a speech Barack Obama gave at the Take Back America conference. There’s also a video link. I love this man!

But I ain’t tagging anyone else - feel free to post your current listening-to 7 songs without having to be tagged, I give the permission. Upload if you want, but it ain’t necessary. I did because I really love these songs.

My 7:

1. Anita Baker - Fairy Tales

2. Ray Charles - You Don’t Know Me
3. Joan Armatrading - The Weakness In Me
4. Luther Vandross - A House Is Not A Home
5. The Replacements - Asking Me Lies
6. Stevie Wonder - As
7. Susan Tedeschi - Angel From Montgomery

Get all 7 songs in one handy .zip file by clicking below:

There are four - count them, FOUR different business institutions at the moment that are on my shitlist. None are employing slave labor (at least not in Bangladesh, anyway), all are right here in good ol’ Georgia. All four employ people I love desperately, all four are denying them the basic incentives, respect, monetary assets, titles, support, and appreciation due them, and all four are run in a completely inefficient manner which merits public flogging at he very least.

D, M, C, J, & M, I love you all and I’m very sorry you’re having to put up with this bullshit. When I win my lotto millions, the first thing we’re going to do is go on a tour of these institutions and bitchslap the everliving shit out of the CEOs for crimes against common sense - then we’re going to offer them each US $1,000.00 to go fuck themselves in front of the entire company. Then we’re going to Cheesecake Factory, eating, drinking, and toasting ourselves for the fabulous new life we’re embarking on where champagne will be drunk from crystal flutes, then the flutes thrown into the nearest fireplace and the watron tipped handsomely.

As a bonus: all ungrateful, spoiled children within our collective shall be dipped liberally in Gravy Train and chucked into our backyard to be instantly devoured by Scout, Maddy, and Mr. Pickles. Also, “The Little Bastard”, as well as “Big Asshole Brother Of The Little Bastard” will be relocated along with “Inattentive Mother Figure” to Middle Earth, where they will be so deliriously happy to be surrounded by …middle earthishness… that they’ll never wish to return. Not that it’ll matter, we’ll be living in the Compound O’ Funnage and it’ll be a moo point. You know, like a cow’s opinion - it won’t matter.

Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2 - as you’ve NEVER heard it before.

Oh, you stupid, loathsome shitstain…

Santorum: We Found the WMD

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) took to the microphone today to announce a shocking discovery — that WMD have been found in Iraq:

“Congressman Hoekstra and I are here today to say that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons. … Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”

See also: Defense Department Disavows Santorum’s WMD Claims

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