Rixosous

Brush up your Shakespeare

Jim Russell, Republican Congressional candidate in New York State (NY-18) feels that a modernized version of Othello is "deliberately designed to exploit the critical period of sexual imprinting in their target audiences of white pre-adolescent girls and adolescent young women" as part of a media plot to "deliberately popularize miscegenation in films directed toward adolescents and pre-adolescents."  ("The Western Contribution to World History," Occidental Quarterly*, 2001/2002.)

Um...what? 

I haven't seen the movie in question, but apparently it is sufficiently true to the source material that the Othello character kills the Desdemona character by the end.   So let me get this straight: a movie in which a girl's black boyfriend murders her out of irrational jealousy is supposed to make white girls in general eager to date black guys?  Because being murdered is, what, oh-so-romantic?

Othello is a wonderful play that I haven't seen enough productions of, but somehow I never thought of it as a tract promoting interracial relationships.  I'm not certain it's condemning them, either; some of the characters certainly are against Othello and Desdemona's marriage on explicitly racial grounds ("an old black ram is tupping your white ewe") but Othello and Desdemona are the victims of evil and are never portrayed as anything other than tragically credulous and somewhat dim.  Given when it was written, that's actually pretty good.  But a nefarious plot to promote "miscegenation" via modernized settings of Shakespeare (since, you know, no one ever remakes Shakespeare in modern settings)? 

I. Don't. Think. So.

(Courtesy of The Albany Project -- see their post for more excerpts featuring racism and anti-Semitism.)

 

Edited 9/22/10 to add:

Salon has more on this.  School integraton might make kids gay!

*The Occidental Quarterly concerns itself with white oppression by "the Negroes, Hispanics, Asians, Indians, feminists, labor unions, corporate plunderers, Jews, Muslims, illegal aliens, socialists, pornographers, “free-traders,” environmentalist fanatics, animal-loving lunatics, the education cabal, the “disabled,” the professional “poor,” atheists, “humanist” clerics, crooked law enforcers, government bureaucrats, venal politicians, activist judges, and the myriad other enemies, traitors and bleeding-heart weaklings that today run what used to be “our” country."

It's still sexism

I was going to leave this as a comment on a LiveJournal, but it started getting kind of long, so I moved it over here.  Responding to this LJ post by sinboy, which I will quote in full here:

[politics] Beware, Marines, gay people will think sexy thoughts about you.

Gen. James T. Conway, the commandant of the Marine Corps, told the Web site military.com in an interview published Friday that an "overwhelming" number of Marines would be opposed to bunking with someone of a different sexual orientation. As a result, he said, the Corps might have to ditch its double-bed rooms and offer single rooms to everyone.

"We want to continue [two-person rooms], but I would not ask our Marines to live with someone who is homosexual if we can possibly avoid it,"

Yes, because gay people will wank while thinking about you while you sleep. Or look at you. Naked. And glistening.

Jesus what a fucking coward [edit - brought down to single coward. I have no idea what other people who're in charge think, much less non commissioned soldiers and officers on active duty.]. I hate to talk about Marines as cowards, but that's just fucking cowardly.

I'm certainly not the first person to make this observation, but it bears repeating anyway: this is one area where the concerns of women (of any orientation) and queers (of any variety) intersect very strongly.  The sentiment looks like simple anti-gay prejudice, and primarily anti-gay-male prejudice, but it relies entirely on intense underlying sexism.

Demon Sheep

Okay, language, I know, language, but seriously: what the f**k?  Carly Fiorina's latest effort has to be the most surreal political ad I've ever seen.  I thought it was a joke, but it appears to be an actual campaign ad.  What were her ad people thinking?

The ad features a demon sheep.  Seriously.  A demon sheep.  In a laughably bad sheep costume, as seen at left.  I know political ads are not usually a model of modern SFX, but with all Carly Fiorina's bucks, couldn't she have afforded a little CGI?  Or at least a better mask?

Let's break down the ad a little bit.

One small victory

Thirty-seven minutes seems like about thirty six and a half minutes more than needed to convict one "pro-life" assassin of the premeditated murder he'd admitted to in court, but maybe the jury had some procedural work to do before getting to the vote.  I can't say this trial exactly restores my faith in Kansas, which is high on my list of states I plan never to live in, but at least it shows that even in a conservative area of the country gunning down a doctor in cold blood is outside normal bounds of civil life. 

I am sorry to say that I was not confident of this. 

I was appalled that a lawyer could seriously present a case for a conviction of voluntary manslaughter on the grounds of (Kansas law) “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force."  Fortunately the judge wasn't having any of that, but just think for a minute about the logical consequences of the idea of allowing "unreasonable beliefs" as an excuse for murder:

What if I'm an evangelical Christian who genuinely believes that Catholic teaching is evil and damns the souls of Catholics to eternal hell (a much worse fate than an earthly death)?  Would that justify murdering the Pope?

What if I am really convinced that "pro-life" nutcases are liable to shoot doctors who work in women's health clinics?  (I can't think why I might have that impression.)  Could I just go around shooting anti-abortion protesters in the head to prevent such occurrences?

What if I truly think that traumatized Iraq war veterans are liable to become violent and kill their wives?  Could I slaughter them in cold blood in the psych ward of a VA hospital?

What if I honestly expect that Sarah Palin would lead us into war with Iran if elected, costing thousands of lives over many years?  Not fetuses, but actual adult human beings.  Could I just gun her down at a campaign stop?

What if I think that meat-eaters are responsible for the deaths of millions of sentient animals?  Could I just take out everyone in a McDonald's who's having a bacon cheeseburger?

Regardless of whether these beliefs are reasonable or unreasonable, there are certainly people who genuinely hold them.  But the rule of law says that we don't let people go around preemptively killing others on the basis of the murderer's beliefs, honest and reasonable or otherwise.  The fact that the judge had to make this clear to a lawyer who thought he could use it as a legal defense is terrifying.  And the fact that I am actually not entirely certain that it wouldn't have worked if the assassin had, say, burst into a clinic room in the middle of an abortion procedure is even more terrifying.

But score one small victory for the rule of law against the bullies and murderers of the "pro-life" (pro-slavery, pro-rape) movement.  I wish I could believe that this represented a turning of the tide.

Dodd is out

Dodd pulling out wasn't exactly a surprise, given his political troubles of late.  I'm on his mailing list, so a resignation letter, presumably a transcript of his speech, arrived at lunchtime, somewhat behind the political gossip.

It was thoughtful:

...none of us are irreplaceable.

None of us are indispensible [sic].

Those who think otherwise are dangerous.

The work to make our nation a more perfect union began long before I was elected to the Senate, and it will go on long after I'm gone. Our country is a work in progress. And I am confident it always will be.

And included some refreshing honesty:

...there is nothing more pathetic than a politician who announces they are only leaving public life to spend more time with their family.

The result of this announcement today will, I hope, create that opportunity -- but it is not the reason for my decision

And signed in that over-casual way with just a first name:

Thank you,

Chris

I can't quite bring myself to be on a first-name basis with elected officials I've never met and wish they would not try for it, even in email.

My response:

Dear Senator Dodd,

Despite your political misfortunes over the past year, I believe you've generally done a good job in office.  I've been proud to have you as my senator, and I would have been happy to vote for you again.  I will never forget your "first hour" speech during the last Presidential campaign and the way you focused on the damage done to our Constitution by the Bush administration.

I hope you will spend your last year in office working to pass health care, immigration reform, and some sort of financial regulation.

Thank you for your service to Connecticut and to our country.

Sincerely yours,

Susan de Guardiola

He's going to be replaced in the race by our Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, whose positions I generally agree with but whom I found when I saw him in person to be the epitome of the slick politician.  I have no special urge to work for him, but he'll be heavily favored to hold the seat; losing Dodd makes me sad but is a strategic improvement for the Democratic Party.  So this slightly narrows my choices for political work over the next couple of years.

To politick, or not to politick, that is the question...

In the wake of yesterday's election, I've gotten email from Ned Lamont stating that he's forming an exploratory committee to run for Governor of Connecticut.

I'm torn.

Lamont was my first political crush, the first candidate I ever worked for (just a little bit) or went to a rally for.  But I got my heart broken when Lieberman won the general election.  I'm still frothing about it three years later; don't get me started. 

I didn't work for the Obama campaign; surrounded as I am by safe Obama states there wasn't much to do locally, and I was never able to be quite as enthusiastic about Obama as others, despite the historic nature of his campaign and win.

So...to work for Lamont again?  Part of me says "yes!"  But Governor isn't the same as Senator; an executive isn't the same as one of a hundred legislators.  Different, more local concerns; different skills needed.  Does Lamont have them?  Probably; he's been an executive.  Would he address my major concerns (property tax relief, city-suburb financial burden-sharing, universal health care, better mass transit)?  Probably.  He'd certainly be no worse than a generic Connecticut Republican.

But part of me is still heartbroken and doesn't want to stick my neck out again.

And if I do, there are other candidates for my time and energy.  While Dodd has gotten amazingly bad press for what strikes me, in the grand scheme of things, as a rather minimal financial favor (a sweet mortgage interest rate from Countrywise), I can't forget that his platform in his failed presidential run last year was to restore the Constitution.  He was the only candidate to make that a priority, and though he hasn't lived up to all his promises (what politician does?), I honestly think he's a thoughtful legislator who's on the whole done more good than harm.  And letting a Republican take a Senate seat strikes me as just as dangerous -- maybe more so -- than letting one take the Governor's seat, which, after all, they already hold.  We need Senate votes.  So should I work for Dodd?

Or should I sit out next year and save every iota of energy I have for 2012, when I will work once more to take out Joe Lieberman?

I can't help but remember that when I worked the polls for Lamont on election night in 2006, exercising every bit of retail sales skill I could summon up in a very tough town, one of the local pols told me I ought to run for office myself, that I'd make a very good candidate.  I don't think I can do that, with my life and background, and in any case I don't know that being a good candidate is quite the same as being a good officeholder; sales are not substance.  But they clearly thought I had campaign skills, which I could just as easily put to use on someone else's behalf.

Or maybe, given my incredibly hectic lifestyle, the idea of working on a campaign is completely insane.

But I'll think about it.

Election Night 2009

Well, after last year's suspenseful but weirdly anticlimactic evening, tonight feels pretty calm.  Hopefully I won't have to stay up so late that I end up baking in the wee hours of the morning again.  But there are half a dozen things I'm following via Kos, the Times, and fivethirtyeight.

Two actual races:

NJ Governor; can Corzine pull it out at the last minute over the "corruption fighter" who seems to have a personal knack for corruption?  Corzine isn't a very good politician, but I think he's really trying under some very bad economic conditions, and I'd hate to see a Republican take this seat.  My mom has to live with this government.

NY-23; craziest race in the country, with the Conservative candidate gaining so much teabagger support that the Republican (a very reasonable moderate sort) dropped out and endorsed the the Democrat, Bill Owens.  He probably can't win here anyway (it's been a Republican seat for decades), but it's still been a lovely political soap opera to watch.

I don't have any hope for VA Governor; Deeds lost it.  I hope Virginians like their right-wing nutto who's against women working outside the home and contraception for unmarried people (he's against fornication, too).  Welcome back to 1950.  I'm also not all that interested in how many points Bloomberg wins by in New York City.

But civil rights ballot measures are more interesting this year:

Maine: looking for a no on 1 here.  I'm refreshing these two websites for results.

Washington: R-71; I want a yes on this one.  I read Slog regularly so I'm even more stirred up about Washington than one would expect.

Kalamazoo: Ordinance 1856; also looking for a yes.

And finally, I have an interest in the race for Fairfield, Connecticut's Representative Town Meeting, of which my fannish friend Bob Greenberger is an incumbent member for District 8.  It took me some time to figure out where one gets Fairfield election news, but the Connecticut Post seems to be the place for me to check.

Shout it from the rooftops

[There has not been] “a single case—not one—in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops."        ---   Antonin Scalia, Kansas v. Marsh, 2006

Going away to dance camp put me away from the news, so I'm behind a lot of other bloggers on this.  But this name deserves to be repeated, even belatedly.  Shouted, even.

Todd Cameron Willingham

I am Carded

It always find it amusing when stuffy old Connecticut gets ahead of, say, San Francisco in matters progressive.  Usually we get little recognition for it; while California was busy making headlines last year, Connecticut quietly started legally marrying gay couples.  So I was amused to hear that San Francisco had also copied another program my adopted hometown started offering about eighteen months ago:

Last year, in an act of considerable political courage, New Haven began offering a municipal ID card to all residents, including illegal immigrants. The reaction from anti-immigrant forces was predictably ugly. Protesters disrupted hearings, heckled and threatened city officials and tried to intimidate businesses that supported the program, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. The city has held firm.
-- The New York Times (editorial), May 22, 2008.

Shawnee Mission East: Really Cool School

Civil rights progress tends to be two steps forward, one step back, and we certainly had that last fall with Prop 8.  But I'd never have expected Kansas, of all places, to generate any news stories that give me real hope for the future.  I think of Kansas as a pretty conservative place, a ruby-red state, despite Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and deeply religious in a way that often adds up to intolerance.  But there are people out there in Kansas who pay attention to the parts of Christianity that are about love rather than hate, and a lot of them seem to go to Shawnee Mission East high school, where a few hunded students rallied spontaneously to protest a hate-filled demonstration by anti-gay religious nutcase Fred Phelps and his followers, best known for picketing military funerals to condemn acceptance of gay people in the U.S.  The kids outnumbered the Phelps crowd about 400 to 12 and turned their counter-demonstration into an AIDS fundraiser.  The Kansas City Star has the story here.  Be sure to watch the slide show and see the kids' homemade signs:

Jesus Wouldn't Hate Why Should You?

Gay?  Fine By Me.

Intolerance Breeds Hatred

Open Eyes/Open Mind/Open Heart

Act Blue, Act Now

I've been very politically passive this election cycle, but today is payday, so I made donations to a set of ActBlue candidates and causes.  This weekend is the final advertising push for the Democratic candidates and civil rights issues I feel strongly about, and every little bit helps, even if it's only $5 or $10.

My donations were spread among:

Barack Obama (President)
South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families - abortion rights
Equality for All - marriage equality in California
Jim Martin (GA-Sen) - fighting the loathsome race-baiting chickenhawk Saxby Chambliss
Dennis Shulman (NJ-05) - trying to get my mother a Democratic Representative
Annette Taddeo (FL-18) - fighting right-wing Cuban-American Rep in Florida
Joe Garcia (FL-25) - ditto
Jim Himes (CT-04) - cleaning the last Bush supporter out of my state
Scott Kleeb (NE-Sen) - fellow Yalie in an uphill red state battle
Darcy Burner (WA-08) - 'cause her house burned down mid-campaign and she's still fighting

Join in, if you like, at ActBlue here.  U.S. citizens or permanent residents only.

Marriage Equality Arrives in Connecticut

People tend not to notice the quiet stuff percolating in small states like mine when California is thrashing around in the spotlight.  But in 2005, Connecticut was the first state in the union to put civil unions into place without a court decision, and we've been quietly percolating along on the marriage equality issue ever since.

Today, our Supreme Court ruled in Kerrigan vs. Commissioner of Public Health that:

"Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection. Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others. The guarantee of equal protection under the law, and our obligation to uphold that command, forbids us from doing so. In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry."

Full decision in pdf form here.  On the lengthy list of cited precendents are Loving vs. Virginia, Griswold vs. Connecticut, Lawrence vs. Texas, and decisions of the Massachusetts and California courts.

There's a movement for a state constitutional convention on the issue, but even our Republican Governor does not believe it will succeed and plans to enforce the Court's decision.  One of the dissents even mentions that the legislature deferred consideration of same-sex marriage last year because it believed that with another two years to build support it would be likely to pass easily in the next session.

I did not choose Connecticut as my home at random, and today I'm proud once again of my adopted home.

Separated at Birth?

A token political joke for the start of convention week. 

As usual, I'm behind the times, since this image was originally posted on Mojoblog nine months ago, but it came to me via email this morning and almost caused my laptop to have a nice orange juice shower.

Have I mentioned recently that I loathe my junior senator?

Old Dreams for New

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images on the The New York Times' Caucus Blog.

Yes, I know all the very good reasons choosing Hillary Clinton as the VP candidate would be a mistake for Barack Obama.  Yes, I know these two probably really don't like each other at this point, and I can hardly blame either of them, though I give them both credit for having the political sense and self-control to hide their feelings in service of the greater goal.

Yes, I know it just ain't gonna happen.

But looking at this photo and two candidates (current and former) who, for once, aren't white men, I can't help but resurrect a bit of that "Dream Ticket" fantasy from back in the spring before the primary campaign turned so ugly.  Don't they just look great together?  I don't mean the matching tie and suit, amusing though that is.  Leaving aside the particular individuals, isn't the sight of a white woman and a black man campaigning as a team just so damned cool?  Looking at their upraised hands, black and white, side by side, I'm tearing up a little.

Will I ever get to see a ticket like this in my lifetime?

OutSeussed!

Maureen Dowd, in today's New York Times:

Before they devour themselves once more, perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss’s “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!” (The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as “Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now!”) They could sing:

“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. ... I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. ... You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!”

The Editors of the New Haven Advocate beat Dowd to the parody way back on March 13th:

It's the classical dilemma

Incoherent political thoughts on my primary day.

Ever since my candidate, Senator Chris Dodd, dropped out of the race a few weeks ago, I’ve been dithering about whom to support.  I was leaning towards Edwards until he dropped out as well, leaving me here on the morning of Super Tuesday with the polls already open and no idea who I’m going to vote for.  Normally I vote in the morning on the way to work.  This year I’m going to be sitting outside the polls at 7:55pm having a nervous breakdown.  Last night I had polling-place nightmares featuring the old lever machines, my last lover, and Barack Obama. Before that, in a moment of incipient psychosis, I thought about praying for guidance.  Three days ago, in desperation, I compared YouTube videos and decided I was considerably more annoyed by the tits-and-ass Obama Girl than the adorably nerdy Hillary Boy.  My life was considerably simpler when I was registered as an independent and could sit out these fights, and when Connecticut voted so late that our primary never mattered anyway.  I considered shifting party registration and voting for Romney on the Republican side.  But despite what this sounds like, I feel some obligation to make a rational choice.

There will be no first hour

In the summer of 2006, for the first time ever in a lifetime as a politics junkie, I fell in political love. Ned Lamont made a primary challenge to my much-hated Senator, Joe Lieberman, and I fell hard.  Ned said, "Stand up for change!"  And for the first time, I stood up.  I changed my registration from Independent to Democrat so I could vote for Ned.  I went to a rally and cheered.  I watched a debate at a Lamont party.  I volunteered.  I spammed my friends with Lamont talking points.  I spent hours in the rain on election night in a conservative suburb, standing outside the polling place, urging people to vote for Lamont and for change.  I wore a funny-looking campaign hat.  I met my candidate. And I was the official Lamont campaign witness as we opened the old lever voting machines for the last time and counted the votes.  Not enough votes.  I didn't go to what turned into the concession party.