doubting thom

This isn’t an explanation why; it’s an honest (if hyperbolic) self-entreaty. What exactly does having a Democratic-controlled Congress give us? We haven’t seen any real pushback on Bush’s unitary executive claims. We haven’t gotten any movement on addressing civil liberty abuses and curbs. We can’t seem to get any bills out to control war spending or bring our troops home. We still have “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and gay Arabic linguists continue to be thrown out of the armed services. The list goes on and on and on…

What do we get instead?

A Senate resolution, passed by a 72 to 25 vote, condemning the free speech of MoveOn.org, for its (admittedly perhaps somewhat over-the-top) advertisement that ran in the New York Times attacking Gen. Petraeus. (Buried in a Washington Post story noting that an anti-war bill was blocked by nearly the same margins.)

The time and taxpayer money that the Senate just wasted on making non-binding resolutions that would police ad content–first amendment, anyone?–makes about as much sense as the time and taxpayer money the State of Minnesota wastes in assigning policemen to sit for hours on end in public restrooms, waiting for sexual advances. MoveOn? I say, rather, “Move on, already! Enough of this bullshit, Senators!”

I am so totally disgusted by the lot of ’em.

From a mailing to the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus:

My name is Benjamin Donner and I am a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. I am currently carrying out my dissertation research on gay identity development across cultural groups in the United States, and thought you might be willing and/or able to help distribute my survey to individuals interested in contributing to cultural equality within the psychological literature, both within the Harvard community and outside of it.

As you may know, academic studies into the developmental experiences of gay and bisexual men are extremely scarce. It is my hope that this research project will shed greater light on those experiences that may be unique to specific cultural groups of gay and bisexual males in the U.S. so that clinicians and organizations are ultimately better equipped to both assist and appreciate our strengths and needs. With that in mind, I would greatly appreciate your distribution of my internet survey to individuals who might be willing to participate. Participants must be biological males, age 18 or over, residents of the United States, and attracted to other biological males. The survey should take between 10 and 15 minutes to complete. All responses will be entirely anonymous – email and IP addresses will not be requested or even identifiable – and will be kept in the strictest of confidence. If you’re willing to share it with others, the survey can be found online at the following link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=rjif1K1SdRN_2bBC3hVcT6Pg_3d_3d

Have all the copy editors at nytimes.com been laid off? Most days it feels like I can’t read an article there without finding at least one mistake. The current top feature, for example, entitled “Democrats Place Hurdle to Mukasey’s Nomination”, contains two errors in just the single paragraph below, one of which–a missing verb–even leaves the meaning, or at least the particular nuances thereof, somewhat unclear:

Mr. Mukasey himself has attracted criticism, notably from civil liberties advocates, who say he has been to [sic] supportive of law enforcement while on the bench. But he has sometimes [mollified? been praised by? puzzled? thumbed his nose at? what?] such critics, as he did with his handling of the case of Jose Padilla, an American citizen suspected of membership in Al Qaeda. Although Mr. Mukasey backed the White House by ruling that Mr. Padilla could be held as an enemy combatant–a decision overturned on appeal–he also defied the administration by saying Mr. Padilla was entitled to legal counsel.

On a more positive note, however, the Times also has noted that they will no longer charge for access to TimesSelect or recent archives. While I personally already enjoy free access to TimesSelect and the Times archives through my university, I really applaud this decision.

Tomorrow morning I have a 7:00 flight to San Diego, where I’ll be attending a conference at UCSD (which technically is in La Jolla) for the editors/managers of the top-level University websites across the UC system, so I’ll be meeting my peers, for the first time, from the other campuses. It’s a short trip; I’ll be returning Friday evening.

It’s my second trip to San Diego, the first having been last December when Jeff and I took advantage of cheap Southwest fares to go just for a very quick weekend, flying down Friday evening after work and returning Sunday night. As part of my attempt to live a tiki life, we stayed at the cool Humphrey Half-Moon Inn and Suites on Shelter Island and had brunch on Sunday at the Bali Hai.

Jeff posted a fairly comprehensive report about the weekend at the end of December, and his Flickr set from the trip is very representative of the things we did and saw, including the hotel, the restaurant, Old Town, Hillcrest, Balboa Park, Coronado Island, and LEGOLAND. I also have some photos from the trip up on Flickr as well, though so far of only a subset of our activities there; I just uploaded some from LEGOLAND earlier this week, though, and more photos from that trip are forthcoming.

I was the one in my extended family that everyone expected would leave home, despite strong familiar pressures to stay, if not in my small rural hometown at least nearby. When I went away to college in Massachusetts and came out of the closet, I knew that as much as I loved my family I’d never be able comfortably to live in the conservative southern Virginia mountain town, so my folks gradually and reluctantly accepted that I’d likely be living far away. When Hal and I decided to leave Boston in 1987, and didn’t really have a strong shared opinion about where to move, my family lobbied heavily for Washington, DC, since it would be only a four-hour drive away. And that’s where we ended up at that point. I always said that I wanted to head west, though, most likely to San Francisco, and even came extremely close to relocating to Seattle in 1992, but some warning bells about the job, and a burgeoning relationship with Jay, kept me in Arlington. But the family had resigned themselves by then to the expectation that I’d be moving to California sometime over the next few years.

As the years went by and that didn’t happen, though, I think they started to start thinking I would stay in DC. In the meantime, my youngest cousin (there were six in our generation, as my dad and his two sisters each had two kids, a boy and a girl) had graduated from UVa and had moved to the DC area as well. In many ways, he and I were the two black sheep of the family, the only two to go away to college (only one other cousin, in fact, finished a four-year degree, but she never left home, and still lives in the same house in which she grew up), and the only two who didn’t come back to southwestern Virginia to live.

In fact, in 1997 my cousin and his then-fiancee moved to San Francisco themselves, surprisingly beating me out here by ten years. They married the following year, and now live in Oakland with their two young daughters. Since Jeff and I moved out here, though, we hadn’t yet seen or spoken to them (they hadn’t been able to come to Covington for Christmas last year, which is the one time each year I’d usually see them).

My aunt flew out to visit my cousin and his family last week, so while she was here we made plans to get together, and they invited us over for dinner on Labor Day. It was not only my first time at their house, but my first visit to Oakland (except for the airport) since moving here fourteen months ago.

They have a beautiful near-century-old house in a charming neighborhood not far from Lake Merritt. We had a really nice time visiting them, and a wonderful meal (my cousin’s wife put together a clambake, with clams, shrimp, mussels, corn on the cob, and green beans, as an homage to her own childhood in Connecticut), and were introduced to a great couple who live up the street from them, an adorably cute cop and a former nanny with an adorably cute Leicestershire accent, and their two adorably cute little boys who often play with my cousin’s two girls.

We’ll see them again at Christmas, back in Covington, but I’m hoping we’ll get together with them out here more often now, too.

As an atheist, almost casually, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Surprising that she’d admit it, but, well, I really have to give her some credit for that, at least.

Are you religious?
No, I’m an atheist. But I absolutely love religions and the rituals. Even though I don’t believe in God. We celebrate pretty much every religion in our family with the kids. They love it, and when they say, ”Are we Jewish?” or ”Are we Catholic?” I say, ”Well, I’m not, but you can choose when you’re 18. But isn’t this fun that we do seders and the Advent calendar?”

But she remains as tight-lipped and grim as ever when asked about her sexual orientation, and the magazine, not surprisingly, gives her a pass.

Over the next two hours, there’s only one subject that she firmly swats away. A recent Out magazine cover featured two models holding up pictures of her and Anderson Cooper’s faces in front of their own, under the headline ”The Glass Closet: Why the Stars Won’t Come Out and Play.” When asked if she has any response, Foster says, ”Was that the one with the Popsicle sticks?” Her thin lips tighten into a calm half smile of reproach: ”No, I have no response.”

So be it. Too many actors today flaunt their personal lives to make up for the lack of a real professional one. And then there’s Jodie Foster … a smart, sensitive actress audiences love to root for.

In her mind, then, is it worse to be known as gay than to be known as an atheist in the US? I thought that polls typically suggest the opposite, though as someone who’s both I already know that either one means I’ll never get to be President.

Apple today announced some new iPods, including the new iPod Touch, which boasts a wide, touchscreen display, like the iPhone. I’d been waiting for Apple to release a widescreen iPod for a couple of years, now. What’s more, it has wi-fi and web browsing.

I was really excited, and was ready to order one the minute it was available, even though I’d bought a new 80Gb iPod Video just earlier this year.

But then I saw that they’re only offering it in 8Gb and 16Gb models. And the 16Gb model sells for $50 more than the new 160Gb model traditional iPod (now called iPod Classic). I’m sorry. The wide display, the touchscreen, the wi-fi and the Internet connectivity are cool and sexy, and I’d absolutely be willing to pay more for those features. But my current 80Gb iPod already is nearly full, and I’m just not willing to pay more for an iPod with only one-tenth to one-fifth the capacity. The beauty of the iPod, after all, is that I can carry my entire music collection with me; I don’t have to make choices beforehand about what I might want to listen to. That’s why I use the iPod and not the CD changer when I’m in the car.

Sorry, Apple. I think you really dropped the ball on this one. I know it won’t matter to Apple that I won’t buy one–after all, even though they limited the iPhone to a single carrier, which is the major reason I didn’t buy one of those, they’ve still sold an insane number of them. But because of that business decision, and now this one (and a partnership with Starbucks… WTF?! Yeah, I like my frapuccinos, but does any company other than Microsoft and Walmart exemplify evil corporate empire more?), I’m also seriously rethinking my planned purchase of an Apple laptop or desktop this fall. I’m a former fanboy (I used to be a really annoying Apple enthusiast, in fact), and really thought you might woo me back. But you just keep taking me for granted.

I wonder if there’s a country song somewhere on iTunes that accurately captures my sense of betrayal?

Today we spent about an hour at the Peninsula Humane Society shelter in San Mateo, scoping out the kitties. It’s been about three-and-a-half months since Alex was lost, and he still hasn’t been found or returned to us, and Jeff and I have decided that it’s time to bring a new cat (or two) back into the house.

The problem, though, is how in the world to choose. We saw two cats today I absolutely fell in love with. Three-month-old Nicolasa, pictured here, even looks like a tiny, female version of Alex. She was so sweet, gentle and calm.

Then there was two-month-old “Doc Brown”, who, on the other hand, was anything but calm. He leapt and climbed all over his cage–and his patient, snoozing mother–batting at me with his funnily oversized kitten paws (fortunately, his kitten-sized claws didn’t break the skin). He had such an amazing personality, and a striking coloration and interesting spots and spiral patterns in his gray fur.

Then there was the adorable batch of littermates named for Disney characters–Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Goofy–and another adorable, teeny-tiny little puffball, so many cats and kittens in need of safe, loving homes.

Ok, I’m a bit of a shoe queen. It’s almost an Imelda Marcos kind of love. Over the past couple of years, though, I’ve begun exercising some self-control. No, I haven’t stopped buying shoes–there’s no call for extremism–but I do have a commitment with myself that whenever I buy a new pair I’ll get rid of an old pair.

Today was the first day of double points at DSW. Of course we had to stop in; after all, we were in the neighborhood anyway (haircut, lunch, grocery shopping). I also had a $10 coupon because of my previous purchases, from when the branch opened earlier this summer at the Westlake Shopping Center in our neighborhood.

I’ve been looking for something to wear around the house; my fleece slippers had gotten dirty and very worn, and hadn’t survived an attempted cleaning very well. In the meantime, I’ve been wearing a pair of Jeff’s dad’s flip-flops, but they’re a full size too small.

So I was excited to find, in the DSW clearance room for 30% off (even before using my coupon), a single pair of Margaritaville sandals with a sueded insole. Amazingly, they were my size. And even more amazing, the style is called “Tiki King,” and features little tiki gods embossed on the leather strap. These sandals clearly were meant for me. And they’re extremely comfortable (I’m wearing them now).

So I came home and pulled from under the bed a pair of Steve Maddens whose stitching and decoration had become undone. Goodbye, old shoes. Hello, new.

According to today’s Future Tense podcast, reporting on an LA Times article, effective September 2007 AT&T is discontinuing its free time-of-day service in California and Nevada, which, it turns out, are the last two states in which the service still is available. The generation growing up now will never know the soothing voice of Jane Barbe or any of the preceding time ladies reciting the current time and temperature. Californians will no longer be able to dial POP-CORN (actually, POP–767–and any four digits provide the time, but only for one more day) to hear Joanne Daniels recite the current Pacific Daylight Time.

Granted, I can’t recall the last time (until tonight, when we called just for nostalgia’s sake, and before it’s too late) I called such a service, and didn’t even realize it was no longer available back in Virginia or DC. These days, I find out the time by checking my cellphone screen, or on my PC, which synchronizes with a time server. Still, this does feel like the end of an era.

OK, you know I can’t resist:

There’s just no time for such things…
The times they are a changin’…
That’s it, folks, we’re all out of time.