The marriage vacuum and the future of the LGBT movement

I've been doing some thinking about the Uniting Against Hate conversation I was involved with last night. It's led me to some reflections -- not altogether uplifting -- about the state of the LGB[sometimes]T rights movement, and where we might go from here.  

At some point in the conversation, I noted that lesbian, gay and bi people have been known to be especially transphobic, and haven't really been the advocates for trans rights that they could be.  An audience member questioned me about that observation, and expressed an alternative view.  In my response, I noted that there were, indeed, abundant examples of the LGB leaving behind the T, the 2007 debacle over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act chief among them.  My critique was (and is, and has been for some time) that the focus on marriage rights above all else has done a huge disservice to other, frankly more important fights.  Marriage is a policy goal of the relatively well-to-do who can afford such things.  Sadly, too many in the LGBT community (such as it exists), have other, far more pressing issues to deal with.  I constantly harp on the four issues that the Sylvia Rivera Law Project so poignantly mapped out:  healthcare, education, employment, and housing.  

Keep on jumpin' (that means read more...)

Diving into deep waters in re: millenials and IR

Yesterday Daniel Drezner raised the question of how millenials (meaning folks in their 20s like me) think about international relations.  There are some really thoughtful responses in the comments, mentioning things like the interconnectedness of our current world, the massive sea of information in which we swim, how a huge growth economy that precipitously tanked on us impacts our lives, and how we see a role for the United States to play in the world without necessarily resorting to hyper nationalist imperialist misadventures. 

I want to respond to the piece, but I want to do so by altering the premise a bit.  Like one, if not more, of the commenters, I was a student of both history and political science.  But then, influenced by a Quaker educational setting and my own personal struggles for social justice, chose to pursue graduate work in international conflict resolution, rather than straight up international relations.  Because jobs in conflict resolution are just a wee bit scarce, I've ended up working in international education, while continuing to do very local level activism at the same time.  And in these past few years, an insight that sparked as an undergrad has become a core belief:  we cannot separate the local from the global.  Or, in other terms, the distinction between domestic policy and foreign policy is purely academic.  As I see it, such a division doesn't actually exist.

This insight first came to me, somewhat unexpectedly, while writing my senior project for my history major oh so long ago.  Through a someone circuitous path, I ended up writing on the domestic political constraints that impacted U.S. decision-making in the Korean War -- a war that could have ended two years sooner had Truman not been afraid of appearing soft on communism at home.  Today, we see that a faulty immigration system impacts our relations with our immediate neighbors.  Our unwillingness to provide healthcare to our citizens evokes scorn from some of our allies.  Because we have a massive array of ill-conceived farm subsidies, we dump unneeded foodstuffs in foreign markets and crush local farmers' livelihoods, all the while calling it aid.  We can't actually cut the bloated military budget because people need the jobs.  The United States lectures the world on human rights, and yet contains fully a quarter of the world's prison population -- jails filled predominantly with young black men serving time for petty crimes in an attempt to keep our longstanding racist history going full steam, but with less overt fanfare.

As I see it, the lesson for my peers is that we must recognize that our domestic politics have impacts on our foreign relations -- beyond the obvious choices in fighting wars, managing economic crises, or cleaning up oil spills.  It is arrogant and hypocritical to claim to be a shining city on a hill so long as children are going hungry, the elderly can't afford their medicine, and it is legal in about 30 states to deny employment and housing to people just for being gay or transgender.  We have enduring cycles of poverty and repression in this country, based on racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism and all manner of xenophobia's other children that we consistently fail to address.  My family came to this country 400 years ago, and yet I was the first of the line to get a college degree.  It wasn't until my grandfather's generation that my someone in family was even able to earn a steady paycheck, and yet my father has been unemployed for at least two years.  It's still far too likely that if you're born poor in this country, you'll die poor.  In our society, you either have privilege or you don't.  And if you don't, getting it takes work.  And that's an understatement.

In my mind, politics should be about the pursuit of justice.  We have a moral obligation to pursue it domestically and abroad, concurrently.  I don't just mean justice in a legalistic sense.  I mean justice in its fullest context -- social, cultural, economic, political, legal, and everything else.  But that isn't happening in our national politics.  Turn on cable television any night of the week and you'll find blabbering dunderheads of both the left and the right nannering on in a language that isn't the least bit powered by a brain.  Rather than focusing on issues that actually matter, politicians and commentators have spent fully two weeks debating where exactly one single mosque ought to go.  Stephen Walt points out that this kind of blubbering reminds him of the political discourse of the Weimar Republic -- not exactly high praise given what happened next.  If this is the kind of leadership my forbears want to demonstrate to people of my generation, then I'm afraid I must protest.  

Thus it is my sincere hope that my generation embraces a politics -- domestic and international -- rooted in justice that honors our fundamental humanity.  It is incumbent upon us to act where our predecessors have failed, namely to address some of the huge systemic problems we face.  I don't have any grand illusions about what can or might be achieved before my eventual demise, but I do know that we have to do better.  That we have to march on.  That we have to realize that justice is peace and that peace is justice.  And finally, I know this:  we damn sure better get to work. 

Sunday news: competence gap edition

We're here, we're queer, and...  wait, wrong speech.  This week we find ourselves, as usual, surrounded by individuals of less than stellar mental prowess.  And they run the world.  Of course...

• How many overpaid idiots does it take to to stop a volley of crude oil shooting into the ocean?  Zero.  They're all too damn stupid to do it right, and they probably won't pay to clean up their mess.
• Why is it that Democrats seem both spineless in governing and spineless in campaigning?  “I just think I bought the sizzle, not the steak.”  [ed. note:  I'm about as wackadoo a liberal as they come... oh, for a decent left-wing party in these United States...]
• Do you wear lots of dress shirts and think it would be wicked kewl to design your own?  Well now you can! (Though you may want to visit the site in question when 40 million other people who just read the same article aren't there.)
• Did you know that the WaPo is sort of stupid about the DC budget?  How about we stop shoveling money into gentrification projects (like the 5-year long "streetscape enhancement" around Columbia Heights metro and that damned stadium and the damned bougie street cars) and stop doing generally stupid things (like tearing down a school, sending the kids to a rat infested temporary school that's a hundred years old, and then spending money on "intermediate use" of the bulldozed school site because nobody ever bothered to issue an RFP for a new building or properly renovate the temporary building, like what happened to Bruce-Monroe).  Oh, and DC has the same tax rate for everyone making over $40,000/year.  How's that for progressive? 

And after all that, I got fed up and quit reading.  :)

Why the ultra-conservatives will lose the culture war, if I have to single-handedly defeat each of them myself

So I'm sitting here, going about my life, totally thinking about blogging on other things, when I stumbled across this.  For the sake of emphasis, let's repost the full headline:

'Christianity' in Mississippi: Constance McMillen & learning disabled students sent to fake prom

That's right, the "well-meaning" and "loving" and "concerned" parents of Fulton, Mississippi rented a country club to hold a prom for their duly selected outcasts, while their presumably totally upstanding young Christian virginal children who are totes free from sin had their own prom elsewhere.  

To them I say this:  I hope your merciful God gets Old Testament on your ass. 

Now I've quietly followed the Southern Prom Saga of 2010 for awhile, and I can relate to these kids.  I didn't go to my own high school's prom for fear of being pumped full of redneck lead.  (That's right, I said it, I was scared those whole 4 years.  Savor the belated victory.)  Fortunately, my then-boyfriend went to a much more welcoming school, and I went to the senior prom with him.  We danced with the principal.  Talk about being on another planet a mere 15 miles from your home.  But I digress.

On the one hand, this is a pretty small issue.  One kid (well, two) in one dinky little town was denied access to her prom, on a pretty silly basis.  She rejected that decision, and the school just canceled the whole prom.  Lucky for her, a Reagan-appointed activist judge ruled that her rights were denied, but didn't force the school go forward, on account of the parent-created prom that was to serve as a stand-in for the school sponsored event.  

On the other hand, this whole incident (and the related incident taking place near Macon, Georgia) is indicative of a far greater problem:  Many, many, many, many, many, many, many American schools (particulary middle schools and high schools) are unsafe for LGBTQ youth.  Here's another tidbit from my past you didn't know:  right after my rather forced outing in 10th grade, I was at one of many meetings with the guidance counselor for my grade (nice lady), who assessed the situation I was facing.  Lots of teachers -- including several I'd never known -- were reporting an obscenely large number of hateful language being directed my way, even without me in the room.  That counselor said to me, in blunt terms, "I don't think you're safe here, and I don't think my bosses [the principal and assistant principals] will protect you.  Here's a transfer form.  Pick your school if you want."

Fortunately for me, I come from a long line of exceedingly stubborn mountain people.  To her, I said "I refuse to let them win," and walked out.  The next 3 years sucked monkey balls.  Sure, I avoided physical harm (though I also avoided being alone anywhere), and I walked around just as cocky and arrogant as all the other teenage boys, but inside I was scared out of my brain.  So much so that when I got a viewbook in the mail for a little dinky college that had a picture of kids drawing a pink triangle on sidewalk chalk, I was on them like like a gay man on an antique store (oh... wait...).  I needed an escape.  

Why?  Because at 18, I felt worn down.  I felt old.  I was declared cynical before my time by coworkers twice my age.  And that, friends, is the experience of a gay kid in a small town high school with a penchant towards conservatism.  

I don't want to suggest that all small towns are as teeming with vile, nasty, brutish people as the folks of Fulton who perpetuated this immature affront.  Nor to I have any interest in breathing any life into the myth that only Southern rural locales are unsafe for LGBTQ folks --  the cities and suburbs can be hateful too. 

But as I've told queer kids when I've done trainings and presentations about advocating for their rights:  "Take all that negative energy and use it to make a better world."  You see, over 10 years later, I for one still refuse to be defeated.  And you know what? 

I've got this on my side:  

Blessed are you when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you.

The Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 5, Verses 11-12

The National Equality March and shoddy organizing

I just got back from the rally portion of the National Equality March, and if I didn't believe in the march from the outset, I most certainly don't believe in it now.

As many of you know, the march was called for and organized by Cleve Jones, and as announced this afternoon, the planning committee consisted of mostly Californians. These Californians called for the march because they lost proposition 8 last fall. I hate to break it to them (again), but losing prop 8 was their own damn fault. A campaign of generic tv commercials and cocktail parties is not activism, is not mobilizing, and is not convincing to the general public. On the same ballot, chickens gained rights, while gay couples lost them. It's not the radical right's fault that initiative was lost -- they played their role in that saga exactly as they were supposed to. The lesbian and gay activists in California (and I use only those words intentionally) and their mainstream gay rights organization backers at the national level messed it up, and I don't feel sorry for them. From the outset, it was clear that their main objective was to bring their sad song to DC, and they have done so, and I'm still not sorry for them.

The rally today featured 35 speakers, at least 30 of which most people have never heard of. Marriage rights were clearly the order of the day. Don't Ask Don't Tell played a close second. The pending Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was hardly mentioned, and healthcare wasn't discussed at all. As the rally was getting started, the announcer kept talking about "securing equal equality for gays and lesbians." Not only does that phrase make no sense, it isn't fully inclusive of what our movement at least purports to be (though is pretty accurate, sadly). In any event, marriage is apparently the be all and end all thing all the little queers are supposed to blindly get behind.

There was very little mention of the unique issues facing transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States. No mention whatsoever of the rural experience. No mention of the poor and working class experience. No mention of the immigrant experience. No metion of the youth experience. Virtually no mention of the person of color experience. This was a march for the white, the middle and upper class, the educated, the well-to-do, the conformist, the assimilationist, the patient, and most sadly, the blind followers. Barack Obama was given one oratical blowjob after another for his ever eloquent empty promises. Barney Frank, with whom I rarely agree, was scorned for calling the march a waste of time. And, sadly, there were far too many posters saying "listen to Cleve" and "Cleve is right." Right about what, exactly? That he needs and wants attention and thus threw this little party to get it? The only person in the long list of speakers (before I left in frustration) to actually call for people to talk to their legislators at the local, state and national levels was Judy Shepard.

(BTW, there couldn't have been more than 10,000 people there, and that's probably generous. The crowd didn't go much further than the Grant memorial/reflecting pool in front of the Capitol.)

There was no talk of grassroots empowerment (though the grassroots were falsely invoked time and again). No talk of how to actually be an effective organizer. No offers of various strategies to see LGBTQ rights recognized at various levels of government. Instead, the talk was listen to the gay elite, and follow their orders. If you dare ask questions, you must be against us.

Fuck all that. The other day a Human Rights Campaign fundraiser stopped me on the street to ask for money. I tried to politely say I had ethical issues with his organization, and wouldn't give. Rather, than leave me be, he started to argue. I pointed out that that HRC is a racist, classist, sexist, transphobic organization. His only retort was that on "the trans thing," they recently added some words to their charter and decided to not fuck up ENDA this time around. Racist, classist and sexist went unchallenged.

I'll admit, I'm a white, gay, cissexual, well-educated, employed, housed man. I should be the one this march appealed to the most. And yet, it was a turn-off. There was no apparent understanding that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. There was no recognition that the oppressed of the world need to unite and work for and with each other. There was no recognition that the incredibly conservative mainstream national gay movement has failed us all.

I've recently been reading a collection of essays called Smash the Church, Smash the State by several early radicals who were involved in gay, lesbian, bi, queer, trans, immigrant and PoC liberation right around and immediately after Stonewall. Several of the authors express astonishment that today's movement (with whom many broke ties long ago) is fighting for marriage rights when 40 years ago the goal was to smash unjust patriarchal institutions, and that rather than fighting for the end of violent oppression and imperialist wars of expansion, today's gay movement is fighting to openly contribute to those efforts.

I guess today we're supposed to congratulate ourselves for working backward.

This is not to say that good things didn't happen around the march. There was a town hall yesterday for trans activists from around the country to network, share experiences, and strategize together. And I also had the real privilege of participating in an all day leadership conference for queer youth from DC and all over the country, where they gained training and skills to take the fight back to their schools and towns and build a better future.

Today is National Coming Out Day. Yet if this march is any indication of the future of LGBTQ activism, then we haven't come out at all. We've built ourselves a new closet that will take years to deconstruct.

Max Baucus can kiss my pansy ass

This grand non-compromise plan isn't worth the paper it's written on. To paraphrase from The American President, what good is health care reform legislation that does virtually nothing to reform healthcare?

Also, I want more than just some good old fashioned market choice, especially if these ridiculous "you're not insured" taxes are going to be foisted onto people.

Now let me make myself clear: I support healthcare reform. Hell, I support turning the whole healthcare system on it's head, shaking it down, and rebuilding it in Sweden's image. This proposal, however, simply doesn't cut it.

Is there some drive up window wherein I can order 535 legislators with integrity and fortitude?

Amoral healthcare reform bordering on immorality

This article from today's Post pisses me off in about 14,000 different ways. And, as many of you know, I'm not a morning person. The issue here is mandated coverage, particularly for young adults (like me).

As has been known for some time, the plans progressing through the idiot Congress mandate that everyone has healthcare. Excellent. Good idea. It's both true and necessary.

However, since the public option has been scrapped in the name of political expediency and Rush the Addict Limbaugh, this comes down to an unfunded mandate to the taxpayer.

Anybody other than me notice that unemployment is up and incomes are down lately? No? Have you read a newspaper/blog or heard a radio or seen a TV? No? Then you have no business writing or voting on legislation. Now isn't the time for an unfunded mandate to anybody.

Since I try to avoid national domestic issues like the plague on our houses that they are, I don't have any data available that I can readily cite. What I do know is this: more of my friends are unemployed than there used to be. Many of those that are employed scrape buy. If my job didn't provide insurance, I, like many, simply wouldn't have it. A mandate from Congress will not change that reality. And yes, it's great that the Medicaid cap on income would go up to about $14,000 a year. But what about the multitudes that make more than that (even by a few dollars), but don't have access to employer supplemented insurance?

Say you live in DC and make $20,000 per year, and you don't have a car, so living outside the city isn't much of an option. Rent and utilities will likely eat up at least half, if not more, of that income. If you ate cheaply, you could maybe get by on $100 per month, if you have no dependents. Factor in another few hundred in bus fare, etc. Everyone needs to buy clothes periodically, but assume you rely on thrift stores. That all would come to roughly $15,000 of the 20. Now, where exactly will the $200/month for a baseline government mandated insurance plan come from? Yeah, you could do it, but you could save virtually nothing and your budget would have to be planned to the penny, and you couldn't survive any contingencies (say, a month being unemployed). Even a college graduate making roughly $32,000 per year, but say carrying $20,000 in debt, is going to find it phenomenally challenging to buy insurance, regardless of the cost. A tax break is a nice idea, but those usually come once a year, and after a purchase has been made. Where does the cash come from in the meantime?

My social security deduction already goes straight from my payroll to my grandparents, after a quick stopover at the Treasury. That's fine with me, as I like my grandparents. But to force young people to buy insurance to keep insurance companies' costs down as they pay for my parents' coverage isn't really ethical. If I had wanted to pitch in on the repair costs for my stepfather's recent broken ankle, I could've done that on my own.

Without a public option, any healthcare reform bill is immoral, particularly if it shoulders more of the costs onto people with the least means. How about we cut the disgustingly high salaries of healthcare execs, or something more socially equitable? The people that claim a public option would fund abortions or provide free healthcare to illegal immigrants (heaven forfend!) or haul my grandmother out and shoot her (I defy anyone to even try that -- you'll lose) need to shut the hell up. And I've yet to buy the argument that reform is somehow unconstitutional. But the plans as they're taking shape are immoral, and for a looney lefty like me, that's entirely unacceptable.

EDIT: Had I read to the bottom of the Post's daily email before sending my blood pressure through the roof, I would have discovered that at least one senator's views comport well with my own. All we need are 99 more.

Open letter to Prince Gomolvilas: You corrupted me

(As emailed to the above named recipient.)

Dear Mr. Gomolvilas (if that's your real name):

This evening, I found myself glued to my computer for approximately 96 minutes while watching the entirety of one High School Musical. This is your fault, and I blame you totally. Your little teenage obsession finally wiggled its way into my otherwise respectable head.

This afternoon, I was sitting in the National Cathedral soaking in beautifully illuminated rose windows while listening to works commemorating the life of Abraham Lincoln composed by some of the greatest American music geniuses of the last century. Sam Waterston narrated one piece. Sam Fucking Waterston. These works were gorgeous. The culminating piece was Hindemith's setting of Walt Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd." A poem inspired by Lincoln's death set to music driven by the death of FDR and millions in the Holocaust. The baritone soloist was Asian, for God's sake, so you would be proud.

And where did I end up this evening? Watching High School Musical with Zac Fucking Efron. Zac Fucking Efron. I was casually searching for a movie to watch online, as this afternoon's entertainment had been a touch... heavy... and doing more reading on nonviolence theory just wasn't appealing to me, even though I need to get it done so that I can continue my God-given mission of changing this fucking shithole planet into something more bearable for us all. And what popped up under musicals, but High School Musical. High. School. Fucking. Musical.

And I watched it. And maybe I even liked it a little. And maybe I got a little bit misty at one part, and perhaps might have shed a single fucking tear. And maybe the gay one was a little endearing, with his cute shirts and all. All while my rabbit mocked me. See?!?! I was mocked by an animal whose brain is the size of a shelled pecan. And it's your fault. It's all your fault. And worse yet, there are still still two fucking more of these fucking endearing little fucking Disney gems left. And I'll probably watch them. And I blame you for corrupting me.

By now, you're probably sitting at your little desk laughing your ass off with your big beast of a cat. You're probably even wanting to repost this on your silly little blog. But I won't let you have the best of me, mon Prince. You may have corrupted me, but you shall not take my dignity.

Yours sincerely,

Jason A. Terry, M.A.

P.S. Watch this, you perv.

Bring it on, Palin

Look folks, Sarah Palin got interviewed by Katie Couric for the 47,000th time, and she of course lost, again. [How one continues to "lose" at interviews should illustrate the Governor's particular level of skill.] Yet this time she got personal, with some ridiculous blather about her lesbian friend's poor life choice about... you guessed it... being a homo! I dare not repost the actual text, as I don't want to sully my blog (read the last three paragraphs of the link above), but I do want to offer a few general comments, as is my wont:

1. This whole "it's a choice" rhetoric is only a loosely veiled method of classifying queer people as second class (or worse) citizens, as in "I shor do feel for those dumb homos who can't live their lives right, like responsible (read: godly) people."
2. If, then, denigrating language is displayed on national television by a (like it or not) important public official, it's only encouraging more people to think that way, and to believe that such dehumanizing thinking is acceptable. This leads to hateful thinking, and hateful acts, all justified by some bizarre conception of the divine, as sanctified by the good governor.
   
3. I can handle the fact that Palin can't tell Paris, Tennessee from Paris, France., because I'm certainly not going to vote for her anyway. But don't start dishing out ignorant, mean-spirited, hateful crap on TV. She should limit her ignorance to countries and concepts, and leave basic human rights out of it.
4. I hope her "good lesbian friend" becomes her less good lesbian friend.
5. Finally, to all my fellow homos who are still steamed that Hillary lost and are thinking of voting for McCain because your diva lost, and he picked another one (who is a horrific replacement, mind you), I hope this kind of crap causes you to finally come to your meth-addled senses.

Clearly, this week's news is bad for my blood pressure. Good thing I'm now just avoiding the economy, or I would've blown a gasket.

Hat tip: Princess Sparkle Pony.

EDIT: My former prof Dan Chong has another fun take on this.

My own bailout request

Now that my attitude has chilled slightly from my last rant on the subject, I have but a simple request: please include in the bailout legislation a federal moratorium on using the words "Main Street" and "Wall Street" in the same sentence. [Also, my student loan debt is still soul-crushingly high, but looks miniscule when compared to $700 billion. If I incorporate as the Bank of Buster, can I get govermnent money by claiming my debt as a bad investment?]

Frankly, this whole mess is so mind-numbingly confusing to anyone without a deep background in high finance that even a theoretically well-education person like me is left thinking, "So what's the real problem here? How did this happen? And why the hell do all us ordinary folk have to pay for it?" I still have no answers to these questions, and the legislation will move forward tomorrow. A great big thanks to all you legislative types for reaching out to your constituents. [Oh wait! MY congressperson can't vote! Of course...]

Meanwhile, in trying to wrap my head around the problems associated with this whole mess, these pieces (here and here) have been helpful on this particular morning. If I could remember where I found a well-formed argument about why the bailout is wholly unnecessary in its current incarnation, I'd link to that too. You'll note that I'm basically linking to conservatives here. This is because I agree with these guys on this point. We (the average schmuck) are spending a boatload of Chinese held dollars to bailout idiots who made bad decisions. And we get nothing.

Let's go mansion squatting

So yours truly went on a business trip that kept me very, very busy. Trying to catch up on news upon my return, I've realized that apparently I've decided to buy a few failing banks with $700 billion of my hard earned money. Apparently, you have too.

I'm fully convinced that this is a sound decision, and it won't bite me in the ass later. Further, I can do it all by myself, with no one looking over my shoulder, because I know what I'm doing. Or at least Hank Paulson thinks so.

And why am I so sure of myself? Because I hear that France did it once, and look how it's worked out for them, what with their roaring economy and all. If only I could get the execution right...

Hrmm... perhaps this isn't such a good idea. How's about another idea or three, Hank:

• The top billion or so executives at all these major companies should lose the15 mansions (only 1 or so more than John McCain has) they each own. Much like homesteading in the nineteenth century, the government should grant squatters rights, on a first-come, first-served basis. Think of the fun of having Sooners on Long Island!
• All these Mercedes that line up at these crisis meetings of pitiful executives should be distributed among the urban and rural poor. Of course, I'll get one too, since I thought of the idea. A cute black convertible is my style. Don't forget the heated seats.
• Since we work so close to each other, I think I'll roll up to your office one day this week with one hand open and the other holding my exorbitant student loan bills. Since you're so generous with all your Wall Street friends, surely you could spare some change for me.
• Oh hey! The Single Moms Working Three Jobs of America Society just called me, and said they would like to know how they're feeding their children this week. Think of all the corn-based, pasteurized, processed McDonald's food you could shove down their starving throats with $700 billion. Hell, you could probably even make them meals of fresh fruits and vegetable for the whole damn year with that amount of cash. Just sayin'....

Now, if I didn't already have a decent enough reason to vote for Barack Obama this year, I now know the full meaning of his saying "you're on your own."

Thanks, Hank.

EDIT: Never trust spam.

Did you ever notice...

How American media/attention spans (and to a lesser extent, the Western world more generally), can only focus on one African conflict at a time? After the holidays we had all Kenya all the time, with an occasional burst of news from the DRC when things in Kenya were looking calm. Now that there's been an uprising in Chad, Kenya has disappeared. Meanwhile, some blogs I follow have been practically pleading for people to consistently pay attention to things in places like Sudan, Uganda, and Somalia.

And, of course, there's always the bit about there never being any coverage at all of good news from Africa, but that's a book (several already written, in fact), in itself.

I'm probably roughly 400 years late to this particular parade. And it isn't necessarily something I haven't observed before. Just sayin'...

Meanwhile, today's piece in the Times magazine on Bernard Kouchner was a fascinating read. Check it out. It sheds some light on a few things.

Finally, some progress in the AU president search

The Post gave us this little teaser this morning saying that the recalcitrant American University Board of Trustees might actually bother to pick a president tomorrow, and that it will probably be the interim president the University has already had for two years.

Well gee guys, it's about damn time.

My woes with AU governance started just shortly after I enrolled there as a graduate student. I watched in horror as President Moronic Asshole Thief stole a lot of money, was caught, and then was given severance pay. After all, I was a student rep to the Board of Trustees when I was in college, and I got a nice tutorial in college and university finances. I also enjoyed, and helped improve, a fairly open and transparent system of governance back when I was a lowly undergrad at liberal arts college. That hey day ended as soon as I got to AU, and I realized how good I'd had it before.

I also got really damn pissed off. And I said so. And it got me nowhere. So I shut up. Anyway.

I think Neil Kerwin will be a fine president at AU. He hasn't had a lot of leverage in the past to years, as he's basically been seen as a caretaker, and as the Post reveals, hasn't really been taken seriously by the Board until just recently. But he seems to be an amiable guy. He actually can be seen walking around on campus, smiling and saying hi to people, which is something his predecessor didn't do (probably because his fat ass was being driven around everywhere).

Nonetheless, this search has been run in a smoke-filled room, with as little transparency as humanly possible. Indeed, there were student, faculty, and alumni reps on the search committee, but no one was allowed to talk about anything. The only public forums on the subject dealt with characteristics various constituencies would like to see in a new president, which of course led to a lot of "we'd like someone who isn't a crook, please." I understand being sensitive to candidates' needs to keep things quiet, but I don't think it's unreasonable to at least name the finalists and bring them to campus for general ogling (sans press).

Even this process would have been more tolerable if the Board had been more transparent to begin with. In spite of going through a big governance reform process during 2006, it seems that most changes were cosmetic. Although a student and a faculty member were added to the Board (without vote), the process of selecting those individuals was done completely in private, after the initial solicitation of applications. In short, who the hell knows what the AU Board will do, except the Board itself. It was telling when, after completing its so-called reform, the Senate Finance Committee wrote back and said "not good enough," to which the Board basically responded "tough." Frankly, inviting a couple more people to your meetings and publishing a very, very brief summary of meetings doesn't quite make Board operations transparent. There needs to be actual effective communication back and forth, and in that regard, the AU Board is still seriously lacking.

Nonetheless, I'm excited about tomorrow's announcement. AU left a bad taste in my mouth at the end of two years. While I think it's a fantastic institution academically, the fact that it's managed by idiots/assholes at the highest level rather casts a negative light on the whole thing. If we could get a forward looking president with the genuine best interests of the University in mind, and a Board that is willing to exercise its responsibilities while neither grandstanding nor micromanaging, then things will be in good shape. If Neil Kerwin is given the authority to do that, then I'm all for it. I guess now we wait and see.

The Official List of People George Bush Hates

So I was reading this weekend about how our beloved president wants to veto the renewal of the children's insurance program, because it doesn't cut enough taxes or some shit. This made me realize that George W. Bush, President of the United States of Dumb Shits Who Voted For Him Twice and the Victims of those Dumb Shits, hates babies. Especially poor ones.

I thought everybody loved babies. Even people like me who can't stand kids love babies.

With these thoughts in mind, I decided to just tick off in my head who else George Bush hates. I've basically come to the conclusion that his goal is to get approval ratings into the single digits (at least). Anyway, here's my list. Feel free to make additions.

1. Children (see above)
2. People of color (see the results of his appointments to the Supreme Court, among other things)
3. Women (ditto)
4. Old people (turning Social Security into private accounts, adding labyrinthine prescription drug measures to Medicare)
5. Persons who live in low-lying areas susceptible to hurricanes (Katrina; see also #2)
6. Congress (ok, so we all do... still)
7. Poor people (tax cuts for the wealthy! death in a quagmire for your kids!)
8. The middle class (you got $300, while your boss got a yacht)
9. Deer, antelope, and the places where they play (ANWR)
10. The Constitution of the United States (Guantanamo, "domestic surveillance")
11. The Queers (see the entirety of 2004)
12. The uninsured (very similar to #7)
13. Radical, gun-toting border vigilantes that make up his political base (see immigration reform)
14. Baptists (he's a Methodist, kind of a given)
15. College students (see ass raper student loan companies running amok)
16. Americans (see #10)

So there you have it folks. I feel better having gotten that out of my system.

Oh, and PSA for all the manly patriots who will inevitably read this and leave a bitchy, unedited, and largely nonsensical comment: I'm liberal, I'm smug, and I don't like to lose.

Stop misusing this word

As we say in my mother land, I'm "plum sick and tired" of the consistent misuse of the word "reconciliation" that has bounced about the international affairs world in the past six months or so. This most often occurs in the context of discussions of Iraq or Somalia, and in both cases the use is nearly always wrong. For examples, see here (near the end of the article) and here.

What all these politicians actually mean when they use the word reconciliation in either Somalia or Iraq is "cease-fire." That's right, cease-fire. This talk of reconciliation is a ruse. They use reconciliation because terms like cease-fire, armistice, etc., imply that Mr. Shit has met Mr. Fan, and the results aren't so hot.

Who's most responsible for this curious turn of phrase? Why, members of the Bush Administration, of course. We all know how well Iraq has turned out. Somalia, it seems, hasn't gone any better, even when we let Ethiopia fight it as our proxy.

Friends, the end of shooting/bombing/slaughter does not reconciliation make. Nor can reconciliation be agreed to via legislation, as is touted in Iraq, or in negotiations, as have been repeatedly delayed in Somalia. Reconciliation is a society-wide process that involves the pursuit of justice, the identification of truth, the factually informed assignment of historical responsibility, and finally (and most difficult to achieve), the transformation of conflict-generating and conflict-sustaining relationships into mechanisms for peaceable coexistence (see Nadim Rouhana, 2004). All this, quite obviously, cannot be accomplished by 5 or 50 guys sitting around in a room.

As much Somalia would benefit from a cessation of hostilities between the Hawiye and the Darood dominated Government forces, this wouldn't be reconciliation. It would be an end of fighting. Reconciliation could only even begin to come after this crucial step. The same holds true for the various patterns of inter- and intra-group violence seen in Iraq. The various political types that keep preaching this misnamed objective (the UN has gotten on board too, and the media hasn't questioned it), need to state their real short-term desires. They want a cease-fire. Of course, reconciliation can and should remain a goal for both Somalia and Iraq, but first things first.

Dear DC dog owners...

I don't know whether or not the cold weather has caused a recent spike in laziness among the dog owners in my neighborhood, but I do know that I'm sick of their shit. Walking around has increasingly become a potentially messy undertaking during the past month or so, and now I've finally had enough.

The final offense was just sick. I was walking home just now with a bag of productivity enhancing treats from the Columbia Road Safeway. As I was walking, I was thinking about eating tasty cookies and getting some work done. Then I smelled something foul.

Lo and behold, there was some dumb lady with her dog, as it took a shit.

On.

The.

Damn.

Sidewalk.

No, not in the little planter box thing right beside the sidewalk, but on the sidewalk itself, as people like me were walking by.

I was offended. I was outraged. Scowling was involved. The dignified little old lady behind me let out a loud "mmph!" and crossed the street. My outrage was slightly mitigated by the fact that the moron at least had a bag at the ready to scoop her poop, but as the impending joy of cookie eating was replaced by the sight and smell of a dog defecating, outrage was the dominant feeling.

So that tears it. Dog owners beware. I am both passive aggressive and have a bad attitude. Who knows what hell I may choose to rain down on you should I bear witness to your irresponsible pooping habits. And if you don't want to clean up after your pet, then you need to get rid of it. I dutifully clean my bunny's litter box and sweep up his stray little poop balls. You do the same with your animal. And if the notion scooping up poop in a plastic grocery bag and indignantly carrying it around offends you as much as it offends me, then perhaps the dog was the wrong choice, you fucking dumbass.

Gasp and horror

Angelina Jolie has just been appointed to a term membership on the Council on Foreign Relations (aka that stodgy yet prestigious body of old farts who have blown up countries for fun). Yeah, I'm happy for her and shit, but seriously, is running around and smiling and refugees and AIDS patients really justification for being elected to America's international relations elite? I mean, yeah, if I was a bajillionaire, I would run off to Africa to volunteer to help people too. But I'm not. I'm working hard in school and hope for a professional opportunity that will allow me to do some good in the world. It's not that I don't respect what Jolie has done both in terms of working on refugee issues and raising awareness among a pretty dense American public, but there are lots of people who work hard for such causes, but maybe can't travel as much or can't get as much attention because they're not wealthy celebrities.

Anyway, I hope Jolie benefits from the experience and takes advantage of the honor. However I also hope that the Council hasn't somehow been cheapened by this. The organization is far from perfect and still dominated by old white guys, but it's also a much respected voice in world affairs, and its membership should contribute to that. Hopefully, Jolie will make such a positive contribution.

Honestly, did you have to add that detail?

The lead story on yesterday's Washington Post email bulletin was this article about the investigation that led to the arrests of alleged terror plotters in England. Aside from being a rather ordinary piece about a lengthy investigation, the article isn't really all that noteworthy, except for something the opening paragraph.

It all began with a tip: In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London's transit system, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance.

Did they really have to put "a worried member of the Muslim community"? Wouldn't it have simply sufficed to say that an anonymous person reported suspicions about someone they knew? Is there even any hard evidence that it was a Muslim individual who made the call? And why not just put that a neighbor or community member (without qualifiers) called in the suspicions.

Honestly, I don't know whether the Post is trying to paint all terrorists as Muslims, or demonstrate that not all Muslims are terrorists. Obviously, the former is false and I don't think that's just gist; probably they were aiming at the latter, but just did it badly. Still, I think it's a little much is all.

An open letter to the United States Congress

Honorable Members of Congress,

I must respectfully express my intense disappointment in your collective actions lately. Today's vote in the Senate over whether or not to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning is simply another exercise in legislative frivolity. Recent votes on whether or not to amend the Constitution to ban "gay marriage" are of a similar vein.

This nation faces real problems. Economists point out that another recession is looming. The Federal budget is absolutely out of control, running record deficits. Also, there is the not so small matter of running two wars simultaneously. Finally, the current Administration has engaged in at least two domestic surveilance programs on questionable legal grounds and without appropriate levels of oversight. To waste valuable time and money debating ridiculous attempts to amend the Constitution to meet with every shift of the political tide is insulting not only to the American people, but to the Constitution itself.

These pathetic grandstanding exercises must cease. There is a reason that the American public has so little faith in either party to effectively lead the nation. Please stop this foolishness and return to real work.

Sincerely yours,

Jason A. Terry
Disenfranchised resident of the District of Columbia