I have a mother and a brother who live in my city.
We never talk.
We don't even see each other.
Of course, things were different – at least on the surface – almost 25 years ago...
After my mother and I came to America from Vietnam, I went to work every day (after attending classes at my high school) in a nasty chicken processing factory hacking plucked frozen chicken into pieces.
I did not do this for fun.
My Mother worked too (as she should have), but the thing of it was we saved every penny - thousands of dollars in total – in order to give my brother Phuoc in Saigon the money necessary to escape from Vietnam. Ever hear of "the boat people"? Yeah.
No one gets in the boat for free. It cost thousands of dollars for the privilege of rolling the dice, setting off in a small boat and praying that you neither starved nor drowned at sea, to say nothing of the Thai pirates that preyed on the Vietnamese boat people.
Long story short he made it to America via a refugee camp elsewhere in South East Asia.
I sacrificed for years for my brother.
He is now living the American dream.
Me, I'm just an embarrassment to him.
I'm gay. And even worse to him, I'm half-American.
I bet that many people in my brother's circle of friends and colleagues do not even know I exist.
My brother's a big shot now. The new immigrant, boat person "golden boy" of the City of Boston. He has had top, well-paid jobs in Government here, like being the director of the Massachusetts Department of Food Stamps under Republican Governor Mitt Romney - the one and same Mitt Romney who crusaded to stop and then extinguish my marriage to my husband.
My brother shares the former Governor's views on gays and gay rights.
A few years back, my brother even told my mother that my being gay IS an ILLNESS.
My mother was only too delighted to repeat his statement to me as fact.
She had found an ally in her nasty crusade against me.
Well, people, despite my older brother Phuoc's MBA from Harvard, his point of view belongs to the to the last century.
Thanks for reading.
-Dat
I'll write more about my life later. Stay tuned.
ps my husband checks my English and stuff with some of my blogs.
So the rose-colored glasses are being ripped off the ObaManiac's faces and they find the light disturbingly frightening....nauseating even...
"Obama right or wrong" sign up sheets are to the left.
Drop your principles in the bucket and pick up the pencil and sign... Remember, the White House is ever so close.
Please steady your legs. It may help to close your eyes and repeat endlessly "the ends justify the means.... the ends justify the means..."
.. New and Not Improved ..
.. .. .. ..
Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush's abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics.
Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he's on a high-roller hunt.
Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling. "We have not been able to have much of the senator's time during the primaries, so we have had to rely more on the Internet," she explained as she and her team busily scheduled more than a dozen big-ticket events over the next few weeks at which the target price for quality time with the candidate is more than $30,000 per person.
The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of Mr. Bush's unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11.
In January, when he was battling for Super Tuesday votes, Mr. Obama said that the 1978 law requiring warrants for wiretapping, and the special court it created, worked. "We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend," he declared.
Now, he supports the immunity clause as part of what he calls a compromise but actually is a classic, cynical Washington deal that erodes the power of the special court, virtually eliminates "vigorous oversight" and allows more warrantless eavesdropping than ever.
The Barack Obama of the primary season used to brag that he would stand before interest groups and tell them tough truths. The new Mr. Obama tells evangelical Christians that he wants to expand President Bush's policy of funneling public money for social spending to religious-based organizations — a policy that violates the separation of church and state and turns a government function into a charitable donation.
He says he would not allow those groups to discriminate in employment, as Mr. Bush did, which is nice. But the Constitution exists to protect democracy, no matter who is president and how good his intentions may be.
On top of these perplexing shifts in position, we find ourselves disagreeing powerfully with Mr. Obama on two other issues: the death penalty and gun control.
Mr. Obama endorsed the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the District of Columbia's gun-control law. We knew he ascribed to the anti-gun-control groups' misreading of the Constitution as implying an individual right to bear arms. But it was distressing to see him declare that the court provided a guide to "reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe."
What could be more reasonable than a city restricting handguns, or requiring that firearms be stored in ways that do not present a mortal threat to children?
We were equally distressed by Mr. Obama's criticism of the Supreme Court's barring the death penalty for crimes that do not involve murder.
We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama's shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.
There are still vital differences between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain on issues like the war in Iraq, taxes, health care and Supreme Court nominations. We don't want any "redefining" on these big questions. This country needs change it can believe in.
Jacques Rogge, chief of the International Olympic Committee, later dismissed the possibility, clearing one negative piece of torch news from the register. But others soon filled the void, as the torch landed in its next city of protesters, San Francisco.
In the past 24 hours, two major news agencies decided to add a historic touch toward the bottom of their torch-relay articles, the kind that is easy to ignore in happier Olympic times. Here’s The Associated Press version:
The Olympic flame wasn’t part of the ancient games, and the torch relay didn’t become a fixture in the modern Olympics until the 1936 Berlin Games, when it was part of the Nazi pageantry that promoted Hitler’s beliefs of Aryan supremacy in the world of sports.
The Olympics first held a torch relay in 1936, the year dictator Adolf Hitler made the Berlin games a showcase of Nazi propaganda. That torch run is captured in one of the most famous — and infamous — Olympic movies ever made, Leni Riefenstahl’s "Olympia."
Upsetting? Maybe. New? No way. Secret? It’s right there on the Beijing Olympics official web site.
This history lesson also innocently includes a list of problems that beset the first torch relay in 1936. Those were the days:
— the site of Olympia [in Greece, where the torch is first lit] was hard to access and roads had to be specially built; — planning of the itinerary required a lot of traveling for that period in time; — the absence of suitable products (torch, cauldron, etc.) meant that research into specialist technology had to be undertaken, such as tests with the sun’s rays and different optical instruments [for lighting the torch].
Cauldrons and parabolic mirrors aside, another question remains: Should the torch’s Nazi-linked past affect its future? Absolutely, says Mary Beard, a columnist for The Times of London (via Clive Davis):
I don’t quite understand how we have forgotten that the "Olympic Torch" ceremony was invented by Hitler and his chums.
If ever there was an "invented tradition" well worth stamping out, it is this ridiculous, Fascist-inspired waste of money.
She was writing on Friday, days before the relay plunged into chaos for completely different reasons.
Change? What Change? The Primaries from a Gay Perspective
by Karen Ocamb
Change? Bah, humbug.
When I watched John Kerry endorse Barack Obama, I couldn't help but think: "Here we go, again."
Kerry, in case you forgot, was the Vietnam war hero turned anti-war hero who didn't have the courage to stand up to Karl Rove and the Swiftboaters and threw gays under the bus to get elected in 2004.
And we relented, not wanting to upset Democratic Party big-whigs like Bill Clinton who made it sound like WE were the ones who brought on the antigay marriage initiatives in eleven states that year. They passed, Kerry lost, and we were blamed. By the way, has either Bill or Hillary Clinton ever confirmed that Bill Clinton advised Kerry to support the antigay ballot initiatives as a way of defusing the gay issue?
So here's Barack Obama, so fresh and new -- getting his national jump-start at the 2004 Democratic National Convention where he talked about red and blue states and having gay friends. Yes -- he actually used the word "gay." But no more. Both in his New Hampshire concession speech and in his thank you to Kerry, Obama reverted to the code word "equality."
Here we go again.
After reading Laura Kiritsy's excellent article in Bay Windows about LGBT influence during the New Hampshire campaign, we must thank Human Rights Campaign field organizer Heather Gibson as well as local LGBT folks who asked the candidates questions at open forums -- at least they got Obama to use the code word. Apparently the HRC "Equality" tee shirts and stickers were ubiquitous.
But what struck me was how Kiritsy described Obama volunteers who apparently tried to shoo Gibson away as she passed out pro-equality stickers outside an event. It was only after a congresswoman hugged Gibson that they stopped eyeing her so suspiciously.
To me this is emblematic of the kind of Rovian Stockholm Syndrome that has gripped Washington and apparently continues to grip Democratic political campaigns. Once again, inherent in the unscripted soul of this "change" campaign, gays were initially perceived as a threat.
The other political take-away from Kiritsy's piece is that the LOCAL crowds were genuinely pro-gay as if the inclusion of the LGBT community is also symbolic of "change" in the movement to elect the first African American president.
But without Kiritsy or syndicated lesbian journalist Lisa Keen, or commentary on our blogs, websites, and listservs, I would not know about LGBT participation. They have helped flesh out my own analytical election pieces for gaywired.com on Hillary's emotional moment and on a recap New Hampshire and looking forward.
As Kerry Eleveld pointed out in The Advocate, the only time the presidential candidates has mustered for the LGBT press was the Logo/HRC forum last summer, and Clinton's 15 minute post-Logo sit-down and Obama's 15 minute phoner with The Advocate after "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin's tour through South Carolina. Edwards never agreed to an interview with the national LGBT publication.
I have been pitching for interviews with both Clinton and Obama since the start of the campaigns, and with Edwards since last September. I interviewed Bill Richardson after his official announcement in Los Angeles -- he wanted me to know how good he was on LGBT issues. After Chris Crain and I wrote about his "maricon" [Spanish for "faggot"] moment, however, I got nowhere.
Now comes the story in Queerty called "DNC Plays Politics with Gay Press." The story revolves around email exchanges among the Democratic National Committee communications staff that came to light as a result of a lawsuit filed against the DNC and chair Howard Dean by onetime DNC LGBT Outreach Coordinator Donald Hitchcock (read about the lawsuit on the Out For Democracy blog).
The money quote from the emails comes from Julie Tagen, DNC Deputy Finance Director who says that Hitchcock's replacement, Brian Bond should handle all gay press inquiries to interview Dean because, she wrote, "I tend to use the blade [referring to the Washington Blade] and the other gay papers in the bottom of the birdcage."
Ouch. The DNC, the suspicious Obama volunteers, the inaccessible Clinton, and John Edwards -- I forgot to mention that one of the conditions that Edwards made when he visited the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center -- the same center he said everyone should know about during his turn on Logo -- was no press! I was in the Logo audience, boiling over. They would have known about it if you had allowed me to cover it -- just as I covered visits by Al Gore and Bill Bradley!
Actually, I knew how the DNC felt about the Washington Blade because I did get an interview with Dean and I asked him about the paper's reporting on Hitchcock's firing. It's important to note that at the time, Dean and others believed the Blade's editor Chris Crain was a gay Republican. The impression was the largely the result of the Blade's "persistence in asking tough questions of the DNC and Dean," Crain told me later, including asking questions about the dismantling of the LGBT constituency desk despite Dean's promise not to do so, as well as questions about Dean's appearance on the 700 Club, and the events surrounding Hitchcock's firing. In fact, Crain said, he left the GOP in 1998 when the House voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. It confirmed for him that the Republican Party had been hijacked by a wing of the party that he wanted nothing more to do with. He's since been very publicly independent. In my interview, Dean said:
"First of all, we consider the Washington Blade to be the New York Post of the gay and lesbian press corp. They're not credible and they have somebody who has an agenda which is certainly not favorable to the Democratic Party so we simply don't give them any credence. Secondly, I'm not going to comment on anybody's firing except to say that it had nothing to do with retribution or anything like that. It was simply a job performance matter. Thirdly -- we have -- for the first time in DNC history - put money into Illinois to make sure that the marriage amendment didn't go forward and we won that one."
I'm sure I secured the interview because I was specifically interested in the DNC's 50-state strategy and the then-new Inclusion Rule written by openly gay DNC super-delegate Garry Shay, of the Los Angeles Stonewall Democratic Club.
I also wanted to ask Dean about marriage equality:
"What we support is equal rights under the law for every single American. We don't take a position on the "M" word. Even in the gay community, there are differences on this one. We believe everybody in American deserves the same rights under the law.... We oppose marriage amendments, whether they're federal or state. We do not believe in enshrining discrimination in any constitution and we've put our money where our mouth is. The Democratic Party believes that 'equal rights under the law' has to be for everybody and they have to be for everybody in every state. You can argue about whether that means marriage or civil unions but there's a huge difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party."
During that interview in August 2006, I also asked Dean about the prevailing attitude espoused by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and others that gays cost Kerry the election in 2004. Dean said:
"We don't, first of all, believe that we lost because of gay issues. We think we weren't sufficiently vigorous in supporting our turnout efforts in rural communities and we weren't sufficiently vigorous in defending a Democratic point of view. Unlike some other folks in the Party, my view is if you want to win, you've got to behave like Democrats, and not Republican-light."
These were important points since during an appearance at Access Now for Lesbian and Gay Equality (ANGLE) and later at the California Democratic Convention that April in 2006, Dean was backtracking on quotes saying the DNC did not support same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, the California Party and all those seeking LGBT political and financial endorsements supported full marriage equality.
And yet -- other than stickers indicating support for California Assemblymember Mark Leno's marriage bill and appearances by candidates before the LGBT Caucus, there was little LGBT visibility at the convention.
Eric Stern, then-head of National Stonewall Democrats (who now supports Edwards), told me:
"Its going to be incumbent on our community, especially our donors when they have the opportunity, to put a little more pressure on our candidates on our issues. Donors are the individuals who have the most access to candidates, who have the most persuasion. Our donors need to be smarter and be more aggressive. You see the effect it's having in California where the bar is marriage and nothing lower."
But it's not JUST about gay donors, ANGLE honcho Jeremy Bernard, who now supports Obama, told me at the time:
"I've gotten a sense from my friends -- and I feel this way too -- that we're tired of being ATM machines. They come and take our money and leave California and they don't really pay attention to what we think or believe. In Boston [during the Democratic Convention in 2004], we were good soldiers because Bush is so bad. But it's the last time. We're not going to swallow our pride like that ever again. In 1992 [during Clinton's inauguration], we were part of a new, exciting world. To think that 12 years later we have moved backwards -- it's horrifying. And the fact that most people didn't think about it [gay visibility] and no one noticed at the Democratic convention -- that's the saddest part."
The saddest part today is that LGBT people are still shooed away, still eyed with suspicion, still addressed through code words like "equality" and their representatives -- the LGBT press - is still shunned -- while the candidates talk about change and inclusively.
Perhaps the most painful part is knowing that the candidates are aware that the LGBT vote is the second largest and most loyal group in the Democratic Party -- roughly 75% -- second only to African Americans. So while the candidates court the Black vote in South Carolina as a "core constituency" -- they are once again rendering us indivisible.
Some change.
So what do we do about it?
We must show up, vote, participate in both the Democratic and Republican primaries and demand to be counted in the exit polls.
LGBT activists and organizations must launch email and letter-writing campaigns to the national and local media and pollsters demanding that the gay question be asked and included in the final tallies.
And we must also demand to me included as a demographic, a distinct minority -- not as an issue. No more should we be sandwiched in between Does someone in your household own and gun? And Does someone in your household belong to a union?
We should be counted and included alongside African Americans, Hispanics and Asians.
And we should conduct our own polling -- from HRC to unscientific polls on blogs and websites such as at GayNewsWatch.com and DavidMixner.com. LGBT reporters can then extrapolate how we voted.
This is a critical election and in the long run, we will vote for the candidate we think will best run the country and eventually help us achieve full equality.
But for now, it is only in the voting booth where LGBT people are full -- not second class -- American citizens.
Obama's bullshit may in fact stink even more than Clinton's...
The Obama campaign - in what can only be described as a most craven and calculated attempt to separate Hillary Clinton from any and all potential black votes in the upcoming South Carolina primary – has taken the Clinton campaign to task for comments made by Billy Boy in New Hampshire on Monday, the day before the the state's primary.
Bill Clinton used the term "fairy tale" in referring specifically to Obama's months long, relentless attacks on Hillary's Iraq War authorization vote.
Obama, in fact, did say he was "NOT SURE" how he would have voted IF he was a member of Congress when the Iraq War authorization vote took place (Obama had not yet been elected to the US Senate).
Folks, it's a quote.
Facts are facts, and these facts do hurt Obama – aka the black guy riding in on the white horse to save us all from ourselves – and his image.
What to do? Why, do what all politicians do. Bury the facts. Create a haze of fog to hover over 'em. Do what Hillary does with her Iraq War vote, and try to make it disappear.
Hillary has tried to make her vote disappear by pointing out that once a Senator, Obama voted almost exactly the way she did on every war appropriations bill to come down the pike.
It didn't work. The crowds were still goin' berzerk for Barak. So they had to rough him up a bit. They hauled out the dirtiest nastiest shit they could find – they mentioned what the dude actually said.
Obama didn't like that. He knows this "She voted for the war authorization" mantra was his ticket to Change-ville.
So he plays the race card.
While it may be smart - in that cunning as a fox, twist shit all up like a real live politician – way, it is D-U-M-B in the long term.
It may get him black votes in South Carolina. It will remind voters everywhere that the Clintons play dirty.
It will also tear a gaping emotional hole in the Democratic coalition that may not be repairable post convention. The worst thing about it – it will accomplish all the above while being a blatant falsehood.
It will also earn him a deserved reputation for playing the "black-as-the-victim" card.
You see, it doesn't matter if blacks are victims of the white-a-premacy of the good 'ol US of A. Whites hate being reminded of it.
Really hate it.
Come November, if Barak does indeed win the nomination of his party, he goes to face the electorate as a whole. And let me tell you.
There are a whole lot of white folk that are going to be voting in November.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE: Here's what Clinton actually said in the following Short vid clip
Rachel Sklar on Huffington Post says: "Wow, strong words — but unequivocally pertaining to Obama's Iraq war position. Pretty clear cut, right?
Ha, as if. Here's what it morphed into in the media: BILL CLINTON CALLS OBAMA'S MESSAGE OF HOPE AND INSPIRATION A FAIRYTALE! HE THINKS OBAMA'S DREAM FOR BLACK AMERICA IS A FAIRYTALE!
I kid you not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post Script - I wanted so much more from Barak. I really did. Turns out he's no different.
In fact, he may be just nasty and slick enough to actually win, and when push comes to shove, I want a Democrat in the White House - whichever one of these two fools it may be.
No WOMAN need apply... [aka What a fucktard says...]
Well, you're about to read it straight from the horse's... erm, ass.
And no, it's not my ass of which I'm talking. It's Mr. Fucktard's ass.
Just when you thought it safe to assume that Latinos had a stake in fighting racism, Jews in fighting antisemitism, and on and on ad-nauseum, along comes this gay (I assume... yeah, so shoot me) guy who thinks it too risky for a woman to stand up to a military dictatorship, to say nothing of her also standing up to the Islamic extremists who treat women worse than former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick treats dogs.
Below is what the dude messaged me. Following that inanity is my somewhat bitchy, and definitely angry reply.
Ps Here's the pic I used as our profile image following Bhutto's assassination.
I 'spose it peaked his curiosity just enough to warrant his well intentioned (see how nice I can be?) lecture. Dude isn't even our MySpace friend....
I seriously think he was the young boyscout at the opening of the TV show "The Odd Couple" who got a handbag across the face trying to help some granny across the street.
Could be he's just an unreconstructed high school guidance counselor?
----------------- Original Message ----------------- [aka Adam]'s reply below...
From: Xxx - Xxx Date: 28/12/2007
Re Bhutto's Assassination;
I saw your profile portrait on someone's blog comment.
While I respect your intent, and tend to agree, I can't help but wonder if she wasn't a suicide bomber herself, in her own way; how many died so that she could chase her political intentions (apparently SHE was The People's Party; could she not have supported someone else who might have elicited less of a response in pursuit of the same goals)?
No excuse for the action, mind, but with Pakistan being what it is (and India, for that matter) she must have expected it... but to what end; what happens to her cause now?
I do give the woman credit for standing up for something, even unto eternity. If we all did that in the causes of peace and mutual progress, those who do it for power and money would never succeed.
Your message leaves me thinking you are naive and idealistic to the point of being impractical.
I'm not sure if you are saying she should have seen it coming 'cause she was a woman?
As far as her and her party's shortcomings, they are both known and legendary. That takes nothing away from what she was hoping to accomplish.
Too many western folk haven't a clue about the tribal nature of other peoples and societies.
As you rightly note, she was "chair for life" of the PPP. So who exactly had the same dynastic family following she had that she should have stepped aside for?
If your criticism is that of a lack of democracy in her, and other, political parties in Pakistan - that is old news...
BTW, are you too effeminate to fight for gay rights?
Just wondering, 'cause if you are it may be better to leave that fight to the more "masculine" gays.... [aka - eliciting less of a response in pursuit of the same goals] wouldn't want you to unnecessarily get gay bashed.... someone might even blame YOU for your own bashing.
So maybe fucktard is right? Bhutto was too much a moderate to fight for a moderate Pakistan?
Obama Should Repudiate and Cancel His Gay Bash Tour, and Do It Now
Posted October 20, 2007 | 08:10 PM (EST)
Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped a page straight from the Bush campaign playbook with his announced upcoming three date barnstorm tour through South Carolina with notorious gay basher, [EX-GAY]gospel singer Donnie McClurkin.
[HERE HE IS, IN ALL OF HIS NOW NON-GAY GLORY]
The Grammy winning black gospel singer's last effort on the political scene was his song and shill for Bush's reelection at the Republican National Convention in 2004.
Obama has hitched his string to McClurkin's high flying gay bash kite in part out of religious belief (he purports to be somewhat of an evangelical), in bigger part because he's falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton with the black vote in South Carolina and everywhere else, and in the biggest part of all because he hopes that what worked for Bush's reelection will work for him.
Enter McClurkin.
He's black, he's popular, and gospel plays big with blacks in South Carolina, especially black evangelicals, and many of them openly and even more of them quietly loathe gays.
Bush masterfully tapped that homophobic sentiment in 2000 in part with McClurkin and even more masterfully in 2004 again with McClurkin and the top gun mega black preachers in Ohio and Florida.
He tapped it so masterfully that Bush's naked pander to gay bashing with the GOP spawned anti-gay marriage initiative in Ohio did much to win over a big chunk of black evangelical leaning voter to Bush.
In fact, the great untold story of the 2004 presidential elections was the black evangelical vote.
Although black evangelicals still voted overwhelmingly for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, they gave Bush the cushion he needed to bag Ohio and win the White House.
There were early warning signs that might happen.
The same polls that showed black's prime concern was with bread and butter issues -- and that Kerry was seen as the candidate who could deliver on those issues -- also revealed that a sizeable number of blacks ranked abortion, gay marriage and school prayer as priority issues.
Their concern for these issues didn't come anywhere close to that of white evangelicals, but it was still higher than that of the general voting public.
A Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies poll in 2004 found that blacks by a far larger margin than the overall population opposed gay marriage.
That raised a few eyebrows among some political pundits, but there were much earlier signs of blacks' relentless hostility to gays and gay rights.
A survey that measured black attitudes toward gays published in Jet magazine in 1994 found that a sizable number of blacks were suspicious and scornful of them.
Many blacks also were put off by Kerry's perceived support of abortion.
In polls, Kerry got 20 percent less support from black conservative evangelicals than Democratic presidential contender Al Gore received in 2000.
In Florida and Wisconsin, Republicans aggressively courted and wooed key black religious leaders.
They dumped big bucks from Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program into church-run education and youth programs.
Black church leaders not only endorsed Bush but in some cases they actively worked for his re-election, and encouraged members of their congregations to do the same.
This lesson isn't lost on Obama.
Desperate to snatch back some of the political ground with black voters that are slipping away from him and to Hillary; Bush's black evangelical card seems like the perfect play.
Obama wouldn't dare go down the knock gay path, and risk drawing the inevitable heat for it, if he didn't think as Bush that anti-gay sentiment is still wide and deep among many blacks.
And that's what makes Obama's ala Bush pander to anti-gay mania even more shameless and reprehensible.
From the moment that he tossed his hat in the presidential ring, Obama has done everything he could to sell himself to voters, as the Man on the White Horse, a fresh new face on the scene, with new ideas, and the candidate that's not afraid to boldly challenge Bush and the GOP on everything from the Iraq war to health care.
He's also sold himself as a healer and consensus builder.
Legions have bought his pitch, and have shelled out millions to bankroll his campaign.
But healing and consensus building does not mean sucking up to someone that publicly boasts that he's in "a war" against gays, and that the aim of his war is to "cure" them.
That's what McClurkin has said.
Polls show that more Americans than ever say that they support civil rights for gays, and a torrent of gay themed TV shows present non-stereotypical depictions of gays.
But this increased tolerance has not dissipated the hostility that far too many blacks, especially hard core Bible thumping blacks, feel toward gays.
Obama has spent months telling everyone that he's everything that Bush isn't.
He can prove it by saying a resounding no to McClurkin and to gay bashing.
He can cancel and repudiate the South Carolina "gospel" tour, and do it now.
When Black isn't Black... enough :-) Race in US #1
Current mood: amused
So, there the two of us were, working to bring down the American family by snuggling on the couch watching TV, and once again Dat confuses the "white" woman on TV for someone else that looks nothing like the person he thinks she is. This, I've noticed, happens at least once every month. We've been together 20 years now. It is true - Dat thinks "white" Americans mostly look alike. He has said those words. Exactly that way.
It makes him laugh that I have a hard time telling who is and isn't Khanh Ly - one of his favorite Vietnamese singers. In my defense, way too many Vietnamese woman in show biz go to the plastic surgeon and pick out the same nose. I kid you not.
My mother in law went to Texas to "fall down the stairs" for her insurance forms and walked out with nose # 17 - also known in the Vietnamese community as the "Debbie Reynolds".
Sometimes you can date older Vietnamese women, especially in Cali, by their nose-job. Different ones are in style in different decades. Jowels can be re-lifted, but the shnoz tells the true story.
In the 70's the "Raquel Welsh" was all the rage. When the 80's rolled around, the Joan Collins type was a big draw. The 90's saw the rise of the minimalist-retro look, hence my Mother-in-Laws Debbie Reynolds choice.
It has been very naughty in America to say that a group of people can look alike. Nobody told that to Dat. He was still learning English and working through highschool when the PC culture took root. Anyway, Dat has what many people find the very annoying habbit of saying exactly what he thinks.
It was only after I lived in China and Vietnam, and spent my day to day life with my new Vietnamese family here in the United States that the whole issue of race in the US, and in us, trully began to move past the academic and social niceties and became quite funny at times, to me...
Now on to the vid clip. It is funny. I want to know what you guys make of it. My view will spill out in the reply to the comments.
Psychological IDE's & Friendship
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Friends
I've been here before.
I know the feeling. It is not a good feeling.
I find myself dancing this dance of friendship, and can't help but wonder if when it comes time for the next dip, I may find myself on the floor.
-- see, ditching gender roles means I can dip and be dipped... how wonderfully freeing this is! Except in this case I suppose... lol
So I find myself wondering what to do about a friend of mine. My friend in the "real" world.
Some people may be surprised to know that I often keep quiet when people hurt me or get on my nerves. It's a bad habit. I hold my peace until I'm really ticked off then I let loose, usually aiming with deadly accuracy. Habit of us Scorpions, I'm told.
So what to do with my friend in Connecticut. She's a psychotherapist and psychologist -- and yes what everyone reads is true, they are all crazy themselves.
Way too often she starts quizzing me on relationships, feelings, thoughts and the like.
If I answer she later tells me she feels like a therapist and not a friend. When I gloss over the question -- which I do with increasing frequency these days -- she complains that I'm "shutting her out".
You see my point. She has me in a no-win situation. The less I wish to discuss with her the more she feels left out. I am tiring of the whole friendship and am unsure how to proceed.
I'm torn between sending an explanatory note - which may end the friendship (because she will "castastrophize" the note and it's contents) and being more patient and disciplined, which is not very easy for me I might add - and telling her what I feel/think in a quiet reasonable way, one issue at a time as they come up.
btw, she has invited us to come and stay with her and her husband -- who is a psychiatrist, no less -- at their home in CT next month.
I wonder if I'd be able to work my way around all the psychological Improvised Explosive Devices buried just beneath the surface of her mind and our relationship.
The visit now seems like work, not fun.
What do you do when you need to get something off your chest with someone important in your life?
What do you do when that person is given to turning simple comments into relationship "catastrophe"?
Currently
listening
:
Parallel Life
By
The Starseeds
Release date: 12 January, 1999
amused
giddy
annoyed
