Watching the original series, Tales of the City (1994), I remember so much about why I love San Francisco; so much about why I don’t live there now. Brodie asked me once if I could move there (or NYC) and without hesitation, the reply was “Yes”. The unhealthy things that SF drew out of me would not be there now - not because SF had changed, but because I had. So, watching Tales, one wonders what SF would be like now.
This weekend, Brodie and I did a lot of things in Hamilton: two art events, a couple of bands - a lot of drinking. Here’s a pic of the two of us at a very cool show of large works in a HUGE space, part of a huge set of very nice shots on flickr. (I forgot my camera in B’lo.)
This is the story of the accidental discovery of a tasty dish: what happens when you ask for 3 cups of flour, but are handed, instead, 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar?
Yes, indeedy: the cool job with the cool construction company doing the cool work on behalf of the city.
Lunch, today, was with the Preacher Lady from St Andrews where we talked about things I could do for the parish. And that opened up several new avenues of possibility for me as well. And it looks like on 1 May I will be officially received back into the Anglican Communion.
And I learned how to use a snow blower this morning. :-)
And now, I think I should also announce that, one year ago today, 5 March, Brodie and I decided we were, in fact, boyfriends.
And so there we are.
All things being equal, I’d say March 5th TOTALLY rocks.
Obama released an open letter to the Gay Community on civil unions - posted in full here, on Andrew Sullivan’s blog (because Obama has a PDF on his site - although BHO’s bloggers have it as well).
Brodie posted his comments in another discussion and I tried to add mine to the discussion, but it seems I’m too verbose for a comment box!
To be certain, if pro-gay topics are going to be used to sell a candidate to us who will then just dump on us once in office (a la Mr Clinton and almost every other recent Democratic elected official), then I don’t really care about this election any more than any other. I hope Mrs Clinton can forgive me if I lump her in with her husband, but she seems just like all the other politicians out there.
One of the things that has impressed me about Mr Obama is his willingness to talk to people with whom he disagrees: not just talk to (or at) them but to listen to them, to engage them, to try to bring them along when possible and to compromise as needed. This is frustrating to many people who say “We’re right and they are wrong. End of discussion. Period.” Both the left and the right do this, pro-gay and anti-gay. We want to insist that there is no room at the table for anyone who says we are wrong (who ever “we” are). This quality is also in the world of Politics. It’s not enough to talk to someone and then do nothing: both sides of any question need to be engaged and moved forward. You can’t just cut half of a conversation off with a “you’re wrong, buh-bye.” This is politically expedient if you cut off the minority to win the majority. But it is not politically workable in the long-term, for when the minority becomes the majority everything goes out the window and we never progress, just cycle.
Some supporters (and detractors) see this as “separate but equal”. It is. In historical honesty, “separate but equal” works in the short term: it isn’t a solution, but it is a step along the path to a solution. In a time when no WASP family in American even wanted Roman Catholics washing their windows, blacks *could* as long as they used a different door. In a time when Jews were not allowed in the same housing developments as WASPs, African Americans were there, living in the “servant’s rooms” and being seen by the white population. Yes, it was a class issue. Yes, it sucked because it wasn’t the best solution, but it was a good first step. Later, when it became a worse oppression, it had to be undone. Whites met Blacks for an entire generation as separate but equal. Then we evolved. But there are lots of people who *still* imagine Jews to have horns because they’ve never yet met any - or at least they claim to have never met any.
Gays have only been fighting since Stonewall. It took Blacks 400+ years to move out of slavery to the paltry near-equality they have now. Such change is a generational process of time - not a legislative process of speed. It’s the slow acculturation that makes change possible. NOT sudden dramatic change. Evolution always works. Revolution *nearly never* does.
Civil unions can be our separate-but-equal exposure to the general public. I’m ok with that: civil unions are a good step - as long as they are seen as a step, and not a solution. They too can be the right step towards equality because they expose us to the general public. Fine. (And, generally, I fall on the states-rights side of arguments in the USA, so I do not want the Feds to legislate more power to themselves either in favour or against gay marriage.)
This is a good programme if - and I say *if* with a strong emphasis because I’ve not yet been convinced - if Mr Obama is speaking like a human being instead of a politician. Then we have a lot to hope for here. The news from last week seems to say so, as well: when he reached out to an non-supportive crowd and brought them along in a way they understood. We may have something to hope for here. But this letter to GLBTs has more content in it than the last 17 stump speeches. His general lack of content makes him no worse and no better than more experienced politicians who generate faux-content by using empty promises. Mr Clinton babbled about hope as much as Mr Obama talks of change. Yet in Obama’s lack of content, talk of a “movement” that some characterise as a “cult”, and the terrible groundswell of popular support, I see something more akin to the Reagan landslide: just from the other side. If Obama turns out to be just a leftwinged version of Ronald Reagan demagoguery, we’d have been better off with Ron Paul.
I’m not yet with Brodie on the “fascinating time to be American”, for I’m not convinced Obama can follow through: or that he wants to. And even if so, I know from the John and Bobby Kennedy experience, the Harvey Milk experience and the Ted Kennedy experience, that even the tiniest possibility of real change scares the living daylights out of most Americans and they react strongly: and tear you down to their level at all cost. I’m not yet convinced that he can do it - or that “We” really want it done.
A year ago this date (it was a Saturday last year), I left Asheville on a long drive. It was the continuation of a journey that had begun online the previous October. Now I live in Buffalo… and I’m off to start my first day of a new job. It’s all tied together.
Brodie and I saw this band, The Burning Hell, this weekend at the Pepper Jack Cafe in Hamilton. If you get a chance to see them or hear them, get yerself moving! They are most enjoyable. (Some samples on their MySpace page.)
While “Melodramatic Popular Song” is quite descriptive, I have to say I’ve not seen a band have so much fun on stage in a while. And I think just about everyone played multiple instruments.
Here’s a video (that’s a bit jumpy and with bad sound, but gives you an idea of how it all works…)
(And, today being the leap year celebration of St Matthias day, happy name day to Burning Hell Front Man and Ukulelist, Mathias Kom. - much better video)
This is the self-ruled blog of an Christian attempting to follow God in the Way of Jesus... sometimes. I most identify with the Anglican and Liberal Catholic flavours.
«There is absolute truth in anarchism and it is to be seen in its attitude to the sovereignty of the state and to every form of state absolutism. […] The religious truth of anarchism consists in this, that power over man is bound up with sin and evil, that a state of perfection is a state where there is no power of man over man, that is to say, anarchy. The Kingdom of God is freedom and the absence of such power … the Kingdom of God is anarchy. » Nicolas Berdyaev,Slavery and Freedom
I who have written this story, or rather this fable, give no credence to the various incidents related in it. For some things in it are the deceptions of demons, other poetic figments; some are probable, others improbable; while still others are intended for the delectation of foolish men. (Closing lines of the Táin Bó Cúalnge)
